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MINDEN  ARMAIS 

THE  MAN  OF  THE  NEW  RACE. 


A  MEMOIR 

BY  THE  LATE  DR.  JAMIESON 


"THIS   GENERATION   SHOULD    COURAGEOUSLY   PACE    THESE    GRAVE 

QUESTIONS,  AND   NOT   LEAVE   THEM   AS  A 

HERITAGE   FOR   THE   NEXT." 


AMERICAN  PRINTING  HOUSP: 

PUBLISHERS 

No.  1019  CHERRY  STREET 
PHILADELPHIA,  PA. 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 


Entered  in  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1890, 
by  CHARLES  S.  KEYSKR. 
All  rights  reserved. 


Press  of 

Ameriean  Printing  House 
1O19  Cherry  Street 


MINDEN   ARMAIS. 


i. 

My  first  acquaintance  with  Minden  Armais  was  in  Paris, 
in  the  winter  of  1852-3.  He  was  living  at  the  house  of  M. 
L,avalle,  a  gentleman,  then  of  large  means  and  very  consid- 
siderable  influence,  and  was,  as  I  understood,  under  his  care. 
We  attended  lectures  at  one  of  the  medical  schools  of  that 
city.  I  was  constantly  with  him  during  that  winter.  I  left 
Paris  in  the  spring  of  1855,  and,  although  I  kept  up  an  occa 
sional  correspondence  with  him,  did  not  meet  him  again 
until  he  sought  me  out  here,  three  years  afterwards. 

II. 

It  seems  that  the  Abolition  movement  in  this  country 
largely  engrossed  the  attention  of  those  with  whom  M.  Armais 
associated  after  I  left  Paris,  and  was  believed  by  them  to  rep 
resent  a  social  change,  not  less  than  a  political — to  indicate 
that  a  race  with  which  his  blood  was  intermingled  was  about 
to  fulfill  an  important  mission  in  our  country.  In  conse 
quence  of  these  views,  therefore,  and  assured  also  by  the 
strength  the  Abolition  movement  was  gaining,  he  left  France 
in  1858,  with  the  determination  to  make  this  country  his 
home. 

III. 

Some  time  subsequent  to  his  arrival  the  following  passage 
occurs  in  a  diary  *  kept  by  him,  from  which  I  have  taken 
much  of  the  material  in  this  memoir.  It  gives,  it  must  be 
confessed,  a  very  unhappy  view  of  his  condition  among  us. 

*Written  in  the  French  language ;  his  education  had  been  in  that  language 


8  MINDKN   ARMAIS. 

4  •  I  observe  this  fact :  In  Europe  I  found  human  recognition  ; 
but  here,  on  these  shores,  in  a  great  city  of  the  Northern  American 
States,  I  am  absolutely  ostracised  from  men.  They  refuse  me  a  meal 
at  their  tables  ;  they  deny  me  a  place  in  the  congregations  of  their 
churches  ;  they  will  not  allow  me  to  seat  myself  beside  them  in  con 
veyances  on  their  common  highways  ;  in  resorts  of  business  I  am 
looked  upon  as  a  Pariah.  Even  among  the  philanthropists,  I  under 
stand  I  would  be  used  as  part  of  a  stock  in  trade  ;  and  among  sci 
entific  men,  my  education  avails  me  nothing.  Custom,  universally, 
and  their  laws  also,  partially,  assign  me  a  place  among  social  out 
casts  without  education  and  without  refinement.  I  am  shut  out 
from  the  rest  of  the  citizens,  like  the  old  lepers,  or  the  victims  of 
some  modern  contagion.  This  is  my  position  in  the  Northern  States 
of  America  ;  where  I  had  believed  that  the  onward  tide  of  a  broader 
Democracy  was  surging  over  the  barriers  set  against  the  elevation 
of  man,  I  find  it  has  not  even  reached  the  door-sills  of  its  advo 
cates." 

— Diary,  December  loth,  1858. 

Again — 

"  Companionship  with  this  people  is  possible  in  only  one  con 
dition — the  condition  of  servitude.  I  must  learn  the  hard  lesson 
that  he  must  work  humbly  on  the  earth  who  would  not  leave  his 

work  undone. " 

— Diary,  December  25th,  1858. 

IV. 

Following  the  idea  which  he  thus  indicates,  M.  Armais 
sought  me  oiit,  and  through  my  influence  secured  a  position 
as  attendant  on  my  friend,  Mr.  Barclay.  What  motive  (out 
side  of  the  one  given  in  his  diary)  led  him  to  assume,  appar 
ently  unnecessarily,  this  position,  I  can  only  surmise.  It 
might  have  been  through  the  necessity  of  his  fortunes, 
although  I  had  no  reason  to  believe  this;  or  it  might  have 
been  one  of  those  voluntary  acceptances  of  the  lower  position 
of  those  whose  condition  we  feel  to  be  a  rightful  part  of  our 
own  which  we  sometimes  find  in  natures  of  large  sympathies. 
The  subject  was  a  delicate  one,  and  never  alluded  to  in  our 
conversations. 

V. 

I  did  not,  I  may  say,  invite  M.  Armais  to  my  house. 
Notwithstanding  our  relations  abroad,  I  felt  that  we  could 


MINDKN  ARMALS.  9 

no  longer  stand  upon  the  same  ground.  I  could  not  intro 
duce  him  into  my  family  upon  those  equal  terms  which  we 
had  borne  towards  each  other.  I  was  shut  out  from  extend 
ing  to  him  those  amenities  which  our  former  associations 
rendered,  indeed,  obligatory  upon  me.  There  was,  however, 
on  his  part,  a  tacit  acquiescence  and  a  full  comprehension  of 
the  necessities  which  our  social  relations  required. 

It  was  not  very  long,  however,  after  his  engagement,  that 
the  unnatural  barrier  which  divided  our  social  relations  was 
broken  down.  Mr.  Barclay  had  been,  very  apparently,  de 
clining  ;  his  condition  was  then  critical  and  alarming.  One 
evening  I  found  Madeline  sitting  by  his  bedside,  the  image 
of  despair ;  her  eyes  were  tearless,  fixed  vacantly  on  her  father. 
I  had  before  told  her  that  I  had  scarcely  any  hope  of  a  favor 
able  change  in  the  disease.  As  I  entered  the  chamber  she 
rose  and  walked  towards  me.  "Tell  me,"  she  said,  "Dr. 
Jamieson,  is  there  any  hope?  Do  not  conceal  the  truth  from 
me !"  She  had  summoned  up  all  her  strength  to  ask  this 
question  and  she  could  say  no  more.  I  could  not  answrer 
her.  I  was,  as  I  said,  almost  without  a  hope  of  her  father's 
recovery.  She  sat  down  by  the  bed  and  buried  her  face  in 
her  hands.  I  gave  M.  Armais  some  directions  about  a  draught 
which  I  had  ordered  and  went  home. 

VI. 

I  had  been  sitting  in  my  office  about  an  hour  when  M. 
Armais  was  announced.  I  was  not  surprised  at  the  visit,  for 
I  expected  a  summons  from  Mr.  Barclay ;  but  I  saw  at  once 
by  his  manner  that  the  visit  was  personal  to  himself.  I  re 
ceived  him  with  our  usual  reserve,  but  he,  with  a  very  few 
words  of  introduction,  addressed  me  as  his  equal.  "  Doctor," 
he  said,  "Mr.  Barclay  will  die."  I  answered  him,  much  im 
pressed  with  his  manner:  "There  is  but  little  hope  of  Mr. 
Barclay's  recovery,  unless  the  disease  takes  an  unexpected 
change."  "  I  wish  to  show  you,"  he  said,  "  a  diagnosis  which 
I  have  here;  will  you  read  it?"  I  took  the  paper  from  his 
hand  and  read  it  to  the  end.  I  then  said,  "This  is  very  care- 


10  MINDKX  ARM  A  IS. 

fully  prepared."  u  I  made  it,"  he  replied,  "for  my  own  sat 
isfaction  ;  but  I  have  a  right  to  address  you  as  one  physician 
may  address  another.  I  have  come  to  ask  you  to  adopt  a 
treatment  that  may  save  Mr.  Barclay's  life."  UI  listen  to 
you,"  I  said,  "go  on."  He  rose  from  his  seat;  his  eyes  had 
fallen  on  a  series  of  the  Academy.  "  Permit  me,  Doctor,"  he 
continued,  taking  down  a  volume  and  looking  through  the 
index ;  then,  handing  the  open  book  to  me,  he  said :  "This 
is  Mr.  Barclay's  case."  I  read  the  case,  and  replied:  "You 
are  partly  right ;  it  is  a  case  with  features  resembling  those 
of  Mr.  Barclay's."  "  It  is,  pardon  me,"  said  M.  Annais,  "  the 
same."  "Will  you  permit  me  further,  then,"  he  continued, 
producing  some  notes,  and  turning  them  from  page  to  page. 
"These  effects  you  hoped  to  produce  here  by  one  course  of 
treatment,  but  without  satisfactory  results;  and  here  you 
changed  the  treatment,  and  there  left  the  disease  to  itself." 
Now  thoroughly  convinced  of  his  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
case,  I  listened  to  him  patiently.  I  took  up  the  diagnosis, 
re-read  it,  and  my  mind  strongly  inclined  to  his  theory.  He 
awaited  my  reply.  I  said:  "There  is  no  one  in  America 
who  would  risk  his  reputation  on  the  treatment  you  suggest ; 
it  is  not  known  here,  and  has  not  the  approval  of  the  faculty 
in  Paris.  "  Doctor,"  he  replied,  "  I  have  seen  this  treatment 
successful  six  times  in  Paris — temporarily  successful,  I  mean 
— for,  as  I  understand,  there  can  be  no  absolutely  permanent 
cure.  Mr.  Barclay  will  die  if  that  treatment  is  not  speedily 
adopted."  After  further  reflection  I  replied  more  favorably. 
I  was  led  to  that  more  favorable  answer  by  the  hopelessness 
of  the  case,  by  M.  Armais'  intense  interest,  and  by  his  clear 
view  of  the  case.  I  yielded,  in  a  word,  to  an  intelligence 
higher  than  my  own.  I  said,  finally,  "  I  will  consult  with  an 
esteemed  professional  friend,  and  if  we  adopt  your  views,  it 
shall  be  done  after  a  consultation  to-morrow." 

Before  leaving  me,  M.  Armais  said :  "  Doctor,  you  will 
pardon  this  visit,  and  you  will  also  promise  me  that  our  con 
sultation  shall  not  be  divulged?"  I  told  him  I  would  use 
such  discretion  as  would  be  proper  under  the  circumstances. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  II 

He  then  left  me  and  returned  to  my  patient's  room.  The 
consultation  ended  in  my  adopting  his  suggestions.  With 
my  approval,  M.  Armais  took  medicines  in  his  hands  in  which 
he  had  confidence ;  he  followed  a  regimen  of  which  he  knew 
the  assured  results. 

The  change  in  Mr.  Barclay  was  slow,  but  certain.  In 
the  two  succeeding  weeks  it  had  become  apparent  to  all  that 
our  patient  had  safely  passed  a  terrible  crisis  in  his  disease. 
M.  Armais  began  to  rest  from  that  continued  anxiety  which 
wears  down  the  body,  no  less  than  the  mind,  and  I  had  taken 
upon  me  a  burthen  of  gratitude  I  felt  wholly  unable  to  repay. 
I  well  remember  with  what  feelings  both  Madeline  and  my 
self  wrote  to  Henry  Lamar,  informing  him  of  Mr.  Barclay's 
dangerous  illness  and  almost  miraculous  recovery,  and  what 
a  great  calm  of  joy  rested  on  the  household.  There  is  noth 
ing,  in  the  whole  range  of  human  emotions,  which  more  in 
tensely  rests  the  heart,  than  the  change  from  death  to  life,  in 
a  sick  chamber. 

VII. 

As  soon  as  Mr.  Barclay  had  recovered  so  far  as  to  require 
only  regular  visits,  I  invited  M.  Armais  to  my  house.  I  have 
been  blamed  for  this  personal  recognition,  but  I  had,  and  de 
sired,  no  alternative.  It  was  natural,  under  the  circumstances, 
whether  permissible  or  not,  at  that  time  under  any  circum 
stances  in  America.  M.  Armais  accepted  the  invitation. 
During  the  evening  I  spoke  frankly  to  him.  I  said:  "It 
would  have  given  me  much  pleasure,  M.  Armais,  could  you 
have  met  here  some  of  my  professional  friends ;  but,"  I  added, 
"you  know  the  social  conditions  of  the  country  allow  me  no 
such  privilege."  "Certainly,  Doctor,"  he  replied,  "when  I 
came  to  this  country  I  had  no  anticipation  of  such  a  condi 
tion  ;  but  my  position  here  gives  you  assurance  that  I  now 
understand  and  accept  its  disadvantages."  I  said :  "  It  is  but 
a  poor  compliment  to  ourselves  that,  whatever  may  be  our 
scientific  opinion  of  the  relations  of  men,  we  are  without  the 
resolution  to  recognize,  properly,  individuals  to  whom  these 
theories  do  not  apply."  He  replied:  "I  believe,  at  last,  I 


I2  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

have  become  willing  to  accept  human  nature  as  I  find  it — to 
ask  of  men  what  they  are  willing  to  give,  and  no  more.  In 
that  spirit,  certainly,  I  have  accepted  the  only  relation  to  your 
civilization  possible  to  me  at  this  time — the  position  of  a 
menial." 

Some  time  after  this  interview  I  again  invited  M.  Armais 
to  my  house.  This  second  invitation  he  declined,  with  many 
expressions  of  his  sense  of  the  feelings  which  prompted  the 
courtesy.  The  substance  of  social  association  was  not  possi 
ble,  and  the  shadow  was  not  acceptable  to  him. 

VIII. 

Under  my  promise  to  M.  Armais,  I  did  not  disclose  the 
full  measure  of  his  services,  either  to  Mr.  Barclay  or  to  Made 
line.  I  felt,  however,  that  his  unremitting  attention  demanded, 
at  least,  some  acknowledgment,  and  I  therefore  suggested  to 
Mr.  Barclay  that  he  should  allow  him  the  privilege  of  his 
library.  To  this,  with  a  little  reluctance,  however,  Mr.  Bar 
clay  assented.  M.  Armais'  duty,  before  a  very  irksome  one, 
now  became  endurable.  He  seemed,  indeed,  by  this  privi 
lege,  to  be  well  satisfied  with  his  position.  The  current  of 
events  in  America,  more  than  all,  justified,  as  he  believed,  his 
purpose  and  made  him,  even  had  his  position  been  less  agree 
able,  well  contented  to  remain. 

IX. 

Some  time  after  M.  Armais  was  allowed  the  privilege  of 
the  library,  he  said  to  me :  "  Dr.  Jamieson,  I  must  admit  my 
ignorance  of  your  country  in  a  far  greater  degree  than  I  have 
already  done.  Three  thousand  miles  away  from  here,  Amer 
ica  appeared  to  me  a  civilization,  a  nationality,  a  people. 
These  words  are  hardly  applicable  to  any  portion  of  this 
country." 

I  replied  :  "  Our  Government  consists  of  States  consent 
ing,  for  certain  purposes,  to  remain  together.  They  are 
represented  for  these  purposes  in  a  general  government.  We 
are  certainly  developing  a  civilization,  although  we  are  very 
far,  as  yet,  from  being  a  homogeneous  people." 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  13 

"I  had  very  igiiorantly,  I  admit,  Dr.  Jamieson,"  he  re 
plied,  u  believed  it  otherwise.  I  was  crushed  down  with  such 
a  universal  consent  that  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  one  mind,  one 
heart  and  one  people  existed  here ;  I  reasoned  that  what  I 
felt  to  be  true  as  to  myself,  must  be  general ;  that  all  races 
here,  except  the  black  race,  had  become  intimately  mingled 
together.  It  seems  to  me  now  that  this  homogeneity  does 
not  exist." 

I  admitted  this  was  true,  and  gave  him,  at  the  time,  a 
kind  of  classification  of  the  population  of  our  cities,  and  many 
details  as  to  the  various  settlements  made  here.  These  sug 
gestions  of  differences  in  race  he  made  the  subject,  as  it  ap 
pears,  of  very  exhaustive  studies.  I  will  give  here  some 
extracts  from  his  diary,  written  about  this  time,  which  are  of 
interest  as  the  ground-work  of  theories  which  he  came  ulti 
mately  to  hold  of  the  law  of  the  distribution  of  races. 

' '  Hollanders  founded  the  City  of  New  York.  Their  descend 
ants,  though  much  intermingled  with  emigrations  from  other  quar 
ters  of  Europe,  still  retain  many  names  and  characteristics  of  those 
who  made  their  country  what  they  have  made  their  city  here. 

' '  Germans  settled  in  large  numbers  in  Pennsylvania.  They 
have  remained  little  intermingled. 

' '  English  immigrants  settled  throughout  the  New  England 
States,  and  other  English  immigrants  made  settlements  in  Mary 
land  and  Virginia  ;  the  peculiarities  of  these  people  are  still  very 
observable. 

"  Norwegians  and  Swedes  settled  intermediate  localities,  and 
still  continue  coming  in  larger  numbers  to  the  northwestern  section 
of  this  country. 

1 '  Southward  along  the  Gulf  region,  and  in  all  the  region  further 
southward,  French  and  Spanish  colonies  settled  ;  but  that  whole 
tropic  belt  was  largely  filled  up  with  negroes. 

' '  Other  peoples  of  Southern  Europe  have  also  settled  there  ; 
their  characteristics  and  customs  still  remain.  A  line  of  climate 
evidently  divides  the  emigrations  here.  The  darker  races  tend  to 
ward  the  Equator,  that  region  which  has,  in  all  ages,  been  occupied 
by  dark  races.*  Purer  white  races  distribute  themselves  through 
the  temperate  regions  of  this  continent.  The  passions  of  the  South- 


*  Appendix,  VI  ,  VTT  ,  VIII. 


I4  MIXDKN  ARMAIS. 

ern  races  strengthen  as  they  journey  southward.     The  endurance  of 
the  Germanic  races  develops  as  they  journe}-  northward." 

— March  yth,  1859. 

Again— 

•'Here,  amid  these  colder  atmospheres,  where  the  black  race 
weakens,  the  white  race  refuses  him  all  rights  and  privileges,  rises 
above  him,  ostracises  him.  In  tropic  regions,  where  the  energies 
of  the  Saxon  waste,  the  black  race  thrusts  him  aside,  destroys  him. 
Nature  tends  to  give  the  one  race  here,  the  other  there,  exclusive 
power.  It  results  slowly,  but  surely,  that  the  black  race  here,  and 
the  white  race  there,  must  be  destroyed,  or  they  must  intermingle. 
They  must  continue  to  exist  whitening  generations  here,  and  dark 
ening  generations  there,  or  they  must  lie,  both  here  and  there,  in 

internecine  graves. ' ' 

— April  3d,  1859. 

These  suggestions  are  pursued  and  appear  in  many  pages 
of  his  diary  at  this  time.  He  arrives,  by  slow  degrees,  at  a 
definite  conclusion.  He  looks  up  from  his  studies  then  to 
the  actual  life  around  him,  and  questions,  with  a  spirit  of  de 
termination,  the  condition  of  affairs.  With  the  same  spirit 
in  which  we  questioned  the  rights  of  the  black  race  here,  he 
questioned  the  rights  of  the  white  race  through  the  middle 
land  of  the  continent.  Against  the  slaveholders  of  this  coun 
try,  as  the  most  immediate  barrier  to  the  elevation  of  the 
black  race,  his  feelings  were  most  strongly  directed.  He 
believed  the  whole  fabric  of  their  social  system  was  untrue, 
and  tottering  to  its  fall.  I  quote  again  from  his  diary. 

"What  right  has  a  man  of  white  lineage,  to  impose  bondage 
upon  one  of  the  darker  race,  in  that  vast  region  which  is  the  black 
man 's  rightful  heritage  ?  What  right  have  those  white  slaveholders, 
effete,  existing  only  by  the  sufferance  of  nature,  to  claim  a  mastery 
over  the  black  race  ?  The  time  is  coming  when  shall  be  erased  this 
error  of  centuries,  when,  with  one  short  struggle,  that  race  will  pos 
sess  the  semi-tropic  land  of  this  continent.  The  white  race  only 
exists,  the  black  race  lives,  there  ;  what  to  the  former  is  a  malaria 
house,  is  to  the  latter  a  sure  dwelling  place.  The  white  man  exists 
there  only  through  the  black  man.  He  majT  solemnize  his  marriage 
there  with  his  own  race  ;  it  is  the  black  race  gives  increase  to  his 
loins.  The  strong  arms  of  the  black  race  which  uplift  the  chair  of 
his  authority,  may,  at  will,  set  it  down.  They  have  a  higher  iiiis- 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  15 

sion  ;  they  await  the  master's  coming  which  shall  give  them  free 
dom — which  shall  give  them,  also,  power." 

—April  8th,  1859. 

X. 

While  M.  Armais  had  assumed,  very  naturally,  with  me 
a  position  of  equality  of  intercourse,  he  still  was  not  regarded 
in  any  other  light  than  that  of  a  menial  by  Madeline,  or  Mr. 
Barclay.  I  seldom  conversed  with  him ;  there  was  little  to 
call  their  attention  to  him  in  any  other  than  that  relation. 
With  Madeline,  however,  during  the  first  year  of  his  residence, 
he  assumed,  unconsciously  to  himself,  the  natural  relations 
in  which,  before  he  came  to  this  country,  he  had  lived  with 
all  others.  The  immediate  occasion  of  this  change  interested 
me  not  a  little  at  "the  time. 

Madeline  and  myself  had  been  attending  the  sessions  of 
the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  of  Foreign  Missions. 
One  of  the  speakers  addressing  these  meetings  introduced,  at 
considerable  length,  and  not  without  opposition,  the  question 
of  the  African  Slave  Trade.  During  his  harangue  he  men 
tioned  the  fact  of  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from  a  missionary  on 
the  west  coast  of  Africa  to  the  Board,  in  which  it  was  stated 
that  a  large  French  ship  arrived  there  the  day  the  letter  was 
written,  for  a  cargo  of  four  or  five  hundred  slaves,  or,  as  they 
were  termed,  "emigrants;"  and  that  two  other  vessels  would 
be  there  soon,  to  engage  in  the  same  traffic.  Expatiating  on 
this,  the  speaker  added  that  twelve  vessels  were  fitted  out, 
annually,  from  New  York,  Boston  and  Baltimore — thirty-six 
vessels,  in  all — to  engage  in  that  trade,  and  that  of  the  24,000 
negroes  brought  annually  from  Africa,  15,000  had  been  im 
ported  directly  into  the  United  States  during  the  preceding 
year.  He  also  stated  that  the  desire  of  profiting  in  this  trade 
induced  the  petty  princes  of  Africa  to  keep  up  a  constant  war 
upon  each  other.  With  no  reason  whatever  based  upon 
reality,  these  suggestions  turned  the  imagination  of  Madeline 
into  this  channel :  there  were  petty  princes  warring  with  each 
other,  and  15,000  of  the  victims  of  these  wars  were  thrown 
annually  upon  the  shores  of  America ;  and  there  was  an  un 
derground  railroad  running  from  the  Southern  States  north- 


16  MINDF.N  ARMAIS, 

ward.  M.  Armais  was  certain!}'  a  fugitive  slave !  Madeline's 
idea  was  not  an  unnatural  one.  All  the  salable  romances 
then  were  founded  upon  such  adventures  as  slaves  crossing 
the  Ohio  on  large  chunks  of  ice,  and  their  hegiras  in  mer 
chandise  boxes.  Not  unnaturally  was  it,  therefore,  for  her 
to  suppose  that  a  fugitive  slave  was  in  her  father's  house. 

Having  arrived  at  this  conclusion,  she  determined  to 
speak  to  M.  Armais,  as  a  theoretic  man  and  brother.  Per 
fectly  free  in  this  way  to  address  him,  she  found  an  oppor 
tunity  to  do  so  soon  after ;  she  had  been  sitting  in  the  library, 
M.  Annais  chanced  to  enter  and  was  about  to  retire,  when 
she  called  him.  Looking  with  a  proper  degree  of  compas 
sion  on  the  poor  "fugitive,"  she  said:  "Minden,  I  want  to 
ask  you  a  question.  You  need  feel  no  fear  In  answering  me, 
as  I  will  not  betray  you."  "Will  Mademoiselle  Madeline  be 
pleased  to  ask  the  question?"  he  replied,  and  his  answer  was 
so  very  much  in  repose,  so  much  unlike  fugitives  in  novels, 
that  Madeline,  having,  as  she  felt,  descended  from  her  social 
level  to  gratify  a  woman's  curiosity,  found  herself,  in  conse 
quence,  obliged  to  rise  at  least  as  high  as  the  natural  level  of 
a  man.  His  manner,  unconsciously  to  himself,  placed  their 
relations  out  of  equipoise.  Unhesitatingly  however,  and  with 
the  infinite  tact  women  have,  concealing  this  impression,  and 
in  turn  placing  M.  Armais,  by  her  manner,  where  he  should 
have  stood  in  a  novel,  she  said:  "Did  you  come  here  from 
the  Southern  States?" 

"I  did  not,  Mademoiselle  Madeline,"  he  replied. 

After  a  pause,  notwithstanding  the  shock  she  had  re 
ceived,  she  continued,  "  Minden,  you  need  not  answer  me 
now  if  you  do  not  wish" — and  then  she  stopped. 

M.  Annais  said  :  "  Mademoiselle  Madeline  would  not 
ask  of  her  servant  a  question  which  he  should  not  answer. 
I  will  answer  whatever  questions  Mademoiselle  Madeline  will 
ask." 

Madeline  then  said,  with  an  expression  of  sympathy  in 
her  voice : 

"You  are  a  fugitive  slave,  Minden?" 

He  looked  at  her  steadily,  and  replied : 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  17 

"  Mademoiselle  Madeline,  I  am  neither  a  fugitive,  nor  a 
slave/' 

XI. 

What  manner  of  man  M.  Armais  was,  and  under  what 
a  debt  of  gratitude  we  all  lay  to  him  Madeline  little  surmised, 
but  he  was  to  her  no  longer,  in  the  sense  in  which  he  had  been 
before,  a  menial;  there  was  something  in  his  manner,  his 
voice,  his  whole  bearing,  which  changed  their  relations. 
His  answer  convinced  her  that  the  supposition  was  errone 
ous.  His  manner  convinced  her  of  the  existence  of  a  much 
more  serious  error.  It  is  a  fact  in  human  experience  that 
mind  and  manner  assert  their  unquestionable  power  under  the 
most  seamed,  distorted  and  erased  lineaments  of  manhood — 
that  culture  and  the  unalterable  kingliness  of  a  noble  nature, 
sooner  or  later,  under  all  disguises,  command  recognition 
among  men.  When  Madeline  confided  to  me  this  interview, 
and  questioned  me  earnestly,  as  she  did,  of  M.  Armais'  for 
mer  life,  I  was  not  surprised;  nor  do  I  think  that  I  was 
blamable,  when  I  frankly  told  her  what  he  was,  and  with 
what  surroundings  of  luxury  I  had  known  him  in  Paris.  I 
could  do  no  less  than  reconcile  what  was  true  of  M.  Armais 
there,  with  what  was  true  here,  intelligence  under  servile 
employment,  and  a  proud  spirit  with  a  servant's  role.  He 
had  already  in  fact,  beyond  any  power  of  mine  to  control^ 
unconsciously,  but  authoritatively,  asserted  himself.  His 
darkness,  indeed,  had  denied  him  this  right,  but  the  shadow 
does  not  change  the  substance ;  he  could  be  no  less  himself. 

XII. 

M.  Armais,  throughout  this  period,  had  but  little  in 
terest  with  us  in  common.  He  was  controlled  by  the  thought 
that  a  race,  cognate  with  his  own,  was  being  borne  on  by  a 
power  beyond  itself,  and  beginning  to  assume  a  place  of 
authority  among  us 

On  turning  to  his  diary,  I  find  that  it  contains  reflec 
tions  upon  the  great  throng  of  lecturers  appealing  for  the 
rights  of  the  black  race,  and  the  writings  issuing  from  the  press 


i8  MIXDKN   ARMAIS. 

in  furtherance  of  its  advancement.  The  memorable  insur 
rection,  which  marked  the  Fall  of  1859,  interested  him  in 
tensely.  From  the  day  that  that  old  man  raised  his  hand  at 
Harper's  Ferry  until  the  day  he  died  on  the  gallows  tree  in 
Charlestown,  M.  Annais'  diary  reads  rather  like  that  of  some 
devotee,  laid  away,  centuries  ago,  in  dust  and  bones,  than 
like  the  diary  of  one  in  whose  veins  flowed  proud,  passionate 
blood.  Day  after  day  he  waited  and  watched  to  see  whether 
that  old  man  would  be  true  or  false  to  what  he  came  upon 
the  earth  to  do ;  and  in  his  calm  and  heroic  death  he  believed 
he  saw  a  vicarious  sacrifice.  On  the  night  following  that 
ignominious  death,  and  while  the  execrations  of  the  mob  and 
the  moans  of  the  bereaved  woman  were  ascending  together, 
I  find  these  words,  written  by  him  in  the  profoundest  sense 
of  sympathy  and  assurance  of  the  future. 

"A  broad  path  of  desolation  through  the  land  opens  before  me. 
His  ghostly  hands  uplifted,  beckon  me  onward." 

— Diary,  December  2nd,  1859. 

He  wrote  again — 

' '  The  rage  of  the  multitude  followed  thee  ;  the  ministers  of  God 
accused  thee  ;  the  slaveholders  condemned  thee  to  an  ignominious 
death.  But  not  the  rage  of  the  multitude,  nor  all  the  power  of 
ministers  and  religions,  nor  all  the  power  of  these  mightier  States 
themselves  shall  keep  the  seal  unbroken  on  thy  grave.  We  shall 
see,  once  more,  thy  haggard  face.  Thy  soul  shall  lift  thy  wasted 
limbs  from  the  grave.  Deliverance  shall  come  through  thee,  and 
thou  shalt  walk  upon  the  earth  again  to  break  the  power  of  our 
enemies." 

— Diary,  December  3rd,  1859. 

And  again — 

"  Let  them  ask  no  mercy  that  showed  no  mercy.  Let  them  be 
destroyed." 

— Diary,  December  I3th,  1859. 

XIII. 

That  event  marked  an  era  in  M.  Armais'  life  as  it  does 
in  the  history  of  our  nation.  It  gave  him  a  clear  view  of 
the  future.  He  was  as  one  from  whom  a  burden  had  been 
lifted. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  19 

Our  intercourse  became  more  unrestrained.  Conversa 
tions  began  between  M.  Armais,  Madeline,  and  myself,  which 
grew  in  interest  more  and  more.  The  impression  produced 
on  me  by  these  conversations  was  singular  and  enduring. 
From  the  interests  that  bounded  our  first  acquaintance  he 
had  journeyed  a  long  way  beyond  me ;  my  profession  had 
limited  me  to  narrower  feelings  and  duties ;  his  advantages, 
and  the  peculiar  nature  of  his  mind,  had  given  him  a  broader 
insight  into  the  future ;  his  studies  enabled  him,  also,  to  grasp 
it  with  a  more  y  profound  comprehension.  The  impression 
produced  on  Madeline  was  no  less  than  on  myself. 

XIV. 

But  while  these  conversations  endeared  M.  Armais  to 
us  very  greatly,  they  also,  as  I  feared,  proved  to  Mr.  Barclay, 
a  source  of  annoyance.  Mr.  Barclay,  as  you  remember, 
while  just,  and  even  generous,  was  a  man  of  strong  prejudices 
of  caste  and  formal  religious  views.  There  was  none  of  that 
dreamy  vagueness,  so  beautiful  in  woman,  in  his  exact  mind, 
nor  any  of  that  broader  grasp  of  thought  which  distinguishes 
the  philosophic  from  the  business  mind.  There  was  a  social 
barrier  fixed  between  himself  and  M.  Armais,  and  not  the 
less,  therefore,  against  any  allowance  of  that  equality  of  in 
tercourse  which  made  these  hours  so  pleasant  for  us.  They 
wounded  his  pride.  As,  when  he  allowed  M.  Armais  the 
use  of  his  library,  it  brought  home  to  him  the  unpleasant 
reversal  of  position  which  mind  affects  in  social  relations, 
so  also,  in  these  conversations,  Mr.  Barclay  felt  M.  Armais 
was  intellectually  his  superior,  although  without  the  social 
right  of  superiority ;  and  he  could  not  accept  the  position 
which  M.  Armais  must  gain,  month  after  month,  while  he 
remained  in  the  house.  He  supposed,  moreover,  that  his 
place  could  be  easily  supplied,  and  he  determined  that  the 
relation  should  cease. 

I  have  been  blamed  for  the  part  I  took,  in  causing  M. 
Armais  to  remain.  I  do  not  believe,  under  the  circumstances, 
it  would  have  been  justifiable  for  me  to  have  done  otherwise. 
I  give,  however,  the  interview,  the  only  one,  I  may  say,  be- 


20  MINDEN  ARM  A  IS. 

tween  Mr.   Barclay  and  myself  in  regard  to  M.  Armais  at 
this  time. 

XV. 

When  Mr.  Barclay  consulted  me  about  obtaining  another 
attendant,  I  answered  him,  I  admit,  in  a  very  decided  man 
ner.  I  could  recommend  no  other.  I  said:  "Mr.  Barclay, 
what  I  will  now  say  to  you  is  not  on  M.  Annals'  account, 
(although  he  has  claims  on  me  which  society  forbids  me  to 
repay)  but  on  your  own.  Your  determination  has  now  as 
sumed  a  settled  form.  I  have  made  such  a  promise  to  M. 
Armais  as  enables  me,  under  the  present  circumstances,  to 
communicate  to  you  what  I  would  have  no  right  to  do  to 
another.  You  were  lying,  last  Spring  a  year  ago,  very  dan 
gerously  ill ;  all  that  I  could  do  had  been  done  without  any 
favorable  result.  It  was  this  sad  occasion,  one  of  the  saddest 
of  my  life,  which  brought  M.  Armais,  uninvited,  to  my 
office."  I  then  repeated  to  Mr.  Barclay  the  interview  be 
tween  M.  Armais  and  myself  the  night  he  came  to  my  office. 
"That  you  are  living,  Mr.  Barclay,  is  the  result  of  that  in 
terview.  Your  life  has  been  prolonged,  I  hope  and  believe, 
for  many  years.  You  require  only  attention  and  care ;  but 
a  relapse  brings  the  same  necessity  to  you  and  to  me." 

Mr.  Barclay,  I  need  not  say,  was  painfully  agitated  dur 
ing  this  recital.  "It  is  to  you,  Dr.  Jamieson,  and  to  M. 
Armais,  that  I  owe  my  life,"  he  said.  "  Can  I  ever  repay  the 
debt  of  gratitude  I  owe  to  you  both?  You  saved  then,  sir, 
two  lives,  my  own,  and  Madeline's  a  life  far  dearer  to  me  than 
my  own." 

"Mr.  Barclay,"  I  replied,  "it  was  the  sense  of  that,  it 
was  the  heart-rending  scene  of  distress  between  me  and  Made 
line,  I  believe,  that  forced  M.  Armais  to  do  what  he  did." 

Mr.  Barclay  then  said  to  me :  "  You  have  saved  me  from 
an  immeasurable  depth  of  ingratitude ;  am  I  precluded  from 
mentioning  this  to  him,  am  I  precluded  from  thanking  him, 
as  I  should  thank  a  man  who  has  saved  my  life?" 

"M.  Armais,"  I  replied,  "has  saved  your  life  and  he 
is  such  a  man  as  I  have  said.  But  you  cannot  thank  him  as 


MINDKN  ARMAIS.  21 

he  should  be  thanked ;  you  cannot  recognize  him  before  the 
world." 

Mr.  Barclay  replied,  "At  this  hour,  it  seems  to  me,  that 
I  could,  that  I  should  do  so." 

"  That  is  impossible,"  I  said.  "  Neither  of  us  can  bring 
him  into  social  relations  with  our  own  people ;  still  less  either 
of  us  give  him  that  whole  recognition,  without  which  there 
is  no  recognition." 

"But  is  there  no  other  course  possible ?"  Mr.  Barclay 
asked. 

"There  is  not,"  I  continued.  "I  invited  him  to  my 
house,  but  I  could  not  invite  my  professional  brethren  to 
meet  him.  We  spoke  freely  about  this,  and  he  said  to  me, 
that  he  had  become  well  acquainted  with  the  fact,  although 
he  did  not  surmise  it  when  he  came  to  this  country.  He 
also  said  that  he  had  now  accepted  it,  and  he  declined  a 
further  hospitality  which  he  and  I  knew  would  be  a  source 
of  unpleasantness  to  both,  from  the  chance  visits  of  my  friends. 
I  could  not  invite  him  to  a  seat  at  my  table,  and  he  would 
very  properly,  under  no  circumstances,  have  accepted  the  in 
vitation." 

"That  is  very  true,"  said  Mr.  Barclay.  "What,  then, 
can  I  do?" 

I  replied,  "It  is  not  necessary  to  do  any  more  than  you 
are  already  doing.  It  is  hardly  worth  while  to  give  our 
selves  any  trouble  about  the  theories  he  has,  of  what  he 
takes  to  be  a  revolutionary  condition  of  the  country,  involv 
ing  social  changes  in  the  relation  of  the  races  here.  We  do 
not  propose  to  be  the  pioneers  of  these  theories,  and  so,  that 
matter  ends." 

Mr.  Barclay  then  said  to  me,  "  I  cannot,  after  what  you 
have  told  me,  treat  him  as  before." 

"You  must  then  be  governed  by  your  own  feelings,  Mr. 
Barclay,"  I  replied.  "Of  this  you  may  be  certain;  he  asks 
for  nothing  more  than  the  treatment  of  one  in  his  position." 

Mr.  Barclay  recalled  his  notice  for  M.  Armais'  dismissal, 
and  requested  him  to  remain. 


22  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

Mr.  Barclay's  grateful  sense  of  M.  Armais'  services  moved 
him  very  sensibly.  The  result  was  what  we  all  desired. 
Could  we  have  seen  the  future,  it  would,  I  admit,  have  been 
far  better  otherwise.  In  life  we  are  blind  guides  leading  the 
blind. 

XVI. 

From  this  time  forward  M.  Armais  was  forced,  in  a 
measure,  into  that  socialization  which  he  believed  was  about 
to  become  universal  for  the  black  race  in  America.  He  be 
came,  in  fact,  as  one  with  us.  The  barrier  of  race  between 
us  ultimately  broke  entirely  down,  and  was  forgotten.  Os 
tensibly  he  held  a  menial's  place ;  in  reality  he  was  no  other 
than  one  with  ourselves.  Beyond  Mr.  Barclay's  family  and 
my  own,  M.  Armais  neither  sought  nor  desired  recognition. 
A  certain  rudeness  in  our  civilization,  the  tone  of  feeling  ex 
isting  against  the  black  race,  made  him  shrink  from  observa 
tion.  Beyond  the  circle  of  our  families  he  was,  as  he  desired 
to  be,  without  acquaintance,  and  so  continued  to  remain. 

XVII. 

Let  me  now  give  you  some  account  of  his  political  views 
and  social  opinions,  from  his  diary. 

1 '  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  whatever  repulsiveness  is  felt 
against  the  black  race  here,  within  the  tropic  and  semi-tropic  line 
it  has  no  existence  whatever.  The  little  white  child  born  there,  in 
whatever  condition,  willingly  clings  to  his  black  foster-mother. 
The  white  boy  is  conscious  of  no  feeling  of  aversion,  as  he  sits  all 
the  Ion**  summer  day  with  his  negro  slave  boy  ;  the  young  master 
feels  none  when  the  sultry  light  of  the  slave  girl's  eye  touches  first 
his  senses;  the  aged  man,  leaning  on  his  negro's  arm  is  uncon 
scious  of  it;  the  children  listening  to  the  old  granny's  stories, 
though  she  be  most  ancient  of  the  whole  plantation,  show  none  of 
that  sense  of  repulsion.  No  relation,  in  fact,  of  this  dominant  popu 
lation,  south  of  a  well  denned  line,  shrinks  from  contact  with,  and 
no  affection  nor  passion  of  the  one  people  exists  there,  that  has  not, 
to  some  extent  at  least,  sympathy  with,  and  passion  or  affection 
for  the  other."  * 

—Diary,  April  5th,  1860. 

•Appendix  III. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  23 

XVIII. 

While  M.  Armais  at  all  times  expressed  the  most  entire 
confidence  in  the  intelligence  and  energy  of  out  race,  he 
found  it  very  difficult,  with  his  limited  personal  experience, 
to  comprehend  the  practical  workings  of  our  system  of  Gov 
ernment.  He  found,  he  said,  so  many  contradictions  that 
he  felt  like  giving  up  in  despair  the  idea  of  arriving  at  a 
clear  intelligence  of  the  subject.  When  he  ascertained  from 
me  that  every  man  of  the  white  race,  irrespective  of  his  in 
telligence  or  his  property,  had  an  equal  voice  with  every 
other  in  the  selection  of  our  rulers,  he  was  disposed  to  believe 
that  those  rulers  would  not  be  selected  with  that  proper  dis 
crimination  which  would  result  in  the  choice  of  men  suitable 
to  conduct  our  affairs ;  and  when  I  told  him  further  that  men 
of  property,  as  also  those  of  large  commercial,  mercantile  or 
professional  influence,  did  not  generally  exercise  the  elective 
franchise,  that  it  was  practically  in  the  hands  of  those  with 
out  property  and  in  no  way  remarkable  for  intelligence,  he 
was  even  more  perplexed  than  before.  He  ascertained  from 
me,  however,  in  the  course  of  our  conversations,  that  the  ex 
ercise  of  this  franchise  had  but  little  effect  on  the  selection  of 
the  men  who  were  to  be  the  officers  of  our  Government; 
that  the  choice  was  determined  at  what  were  called  our  pri 
mary  elections ;  then  he  seemed  to  see  in  this,  a  solution  of 
the  difficulty.  But  when  I  further  informed  him  that  they 
were  held  generally  at  night,  in  obscure  places,  and  attended 
by  such  persons  as  those  who  desire  to  be  selected  for  our 
rulers  requested  to  be  present,  he  seemed  to  be  without  chart 
or  compass  to  guide  him  to  a  comprehension  of  this  anomaly, 
as  he  termed  it,  in  human  affairs.  He  was  at  a  loss  to  com 
prehend  the  magnificent  results  and  the  enthusiasm  which 
surrounded  the  progress  which  I  asserted  was  the  evidence 
of  the  success  of  our  Government.  Nor  was  his  ignorance 
dispelled  when  I  gave  him  a  clear  insight  into  the  personal 
qualities  of  the  candidates  themselves — when  1  informed  him 
that  the  politician  in  America  was  a  man,  turned  out,  as  it 
were,  upon  the  public  commons,  a  man  broken  down  i:i 


24  MINDKX  ARMAIS. 

business,  an  unsuccessful  lawyer,  or  physician,  sometimes 
even  a  clergyman  relieved  from  the  care  of  his  parish  by  un- 
fitness  for  his  parochial  charge.  He  said  to  me,  endeavoring 
to  reconcile  these  difficulties,  "  I  presume,  however,  that  by 
long  terms  of  service  they  acquire  fitness  for  the  new  duties 
assigned  them  by  the  people."  But  when  I  told  him  on  the 
contrary,  that  hardly  were  they  properly  installed  into  their 
several  offices  before  their  successors  relieved  them  from  the 
sphere  of  their  usefulness,  he  said  to  me  that  it  seemed  to 
him  quite  impossible  for  them  to  lend  any  practical  service 
to  the  public  affairs.  I  pointed  him,  however,  in  imanswer- 
able  reply,  to  the  magnificent  results  and  general  approval  of 
our  system.  He  seemed,  I  remember,  utterly  bewildered. 
When  I  told  him  that  our  judges  were  selected  in  the  same 
manner  with  our  representatives,  and  for  like  brief  periods, 
he  said  that  in  other  countries,  where  laws  are  voluminous, 
there  could  hardly  be  time  for  them  to  learn  the  routine  of 
their  office,  but  here,  he  said,  he  presumed  our  laws  were  so 
concise  and  well  arranged  as  to  meet  that  difficulty.  But 
when  I  told  him  that  so  far  as  my  own  personal  experience 
went  they  seemed  much  confused  and  very  numerous,  that 
the  system,  as  I  understood  it,  was,  that  w7hen  corporations  or 
private  individuals  desired  laws  for  their  advantage,  such 
laws  were,  at  all  times,  procurable,  he  professed  himself  as 
incapable  of  comprehending  the  greatness  of  the  results  or 
the  stability  of  our  institutions.  But  all  these  inquiries  he 
held  subsidiary  to -his  own  theories ;  he  believed  that  our  form 
of  government  was  but  a  transition  stage  to  another  and 
more  intelligible  system  of  thought  and  action';  he  accepted 
our  system  only  as  a  transition  condition,  he  failed  to  recon 
cile  its  contrarieties,  and  he  looked  forward  to  another  phas? 
in  its  development  when  it  should  embrace  not  only  all  the 
white  populations  but  also  be  extended  from  the  three-fifths 
of,  to  the  entire  black  population,  with  a  comprehension  in 
the  system  of  women  and  children  also,  so  that,  as  he  ex 
pressed  it,  when  the  great  Governor  should  come  and  assume 
his  rightful  power  here  among  us,  he  might  be  able  to  chal- 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  25 

lenge  for  the  position  he  would  assume  the  most  general 
approbation.  It  was  in  vain  I  endeavored  to  make  him 
understand  that  our  system  did  not  comprehend  the  idea  of 
a  great  governor ;  that  it  had  as  its  basis  a  condition  of  ser 
vitude  in  the  ruler,  that  he  must  be  no  more  than  the  equal 
and  must  assert  himself  to  be  the  servant,  of  those  he  gov 
erned,  that  by  the  very  working  of  the  system  it  enforced  a 
continual  change  from  man  to  man  and  from  theory  to 
theory ;  he  utterly  failed  to  master  my  thought ;  to  a  certain 
point  only  he  could  follow  me.  He  would  say:  "Certainly, 
until  the  country  solidifies  into  a  nationality  this  must  be  the 
practical  working  of  your  system,  but,"  he  continued,  "that 
system  would  lose,  notwithstanding  its  apparent  success,  all 
its  advantages  to  you  if  it  failed  to  eliminate  a  man  having 
a  hold  sufficient  upon  the  affections  of  every  man,  woman 
and  child  and  every  race  among  you,  and  with  a  brain  large 
enough  to  comprehend  all  their  necessities.  Such  a  man 
certainly  will  be  evolved  from  your  race ;  and  you,  a  people 
characterized  by  intelligence,  will  not  fail  to  do,  in  a  matter 
of  'government  what  you  would  do  in  you/  private  affairs — 
keep  him  in  the  place  assigned  him  by  you  as  worthiest  to 
rule;  and  if  not,"  he  would  say,  "such  a  man,  by  the  very 
authority  of  his  nature  and  the  power  which  he  will  gather 
around  him,  will  continue  to  rule."  Beyond  this  conclusion 
I  could  not  lead  him  in  our  auguries  of  the  future  or  in  a 
comprehension  of  our  system  of  government. 

The  following  extract  from  his  diary  gives  his  views 
more  fully  of  the  result  of,  as  he  understood,  or  rather  as  he 
failed  to  understand >  the  practical  workings  of  our  system. 

"  When  that  event  shall  come,  to  which  this  system  of  govern 
ment  tends,  he  would  say  what  a  power  will  it  exert  for  the  happi 
ness  of  its  own  citizens  and  the  welfare  of  mankind.  By  a  univer 
sal  consent  like  that  which  inaugurated  its  first  Ruler,  will  the 
second  Governor  take  his  place  at  their  government's  head.  The 
wide  extent  of  this  country  will  require  a  wide  grasp  of  statesman 
ship  ;  in  him  it  will  find  a  fitting  exponent.  He  will  surround  him 
self  by  the  forms  and  the  substance  of  a  power  which  will  command 
the  respect,  not  only  of  its  own  citizens,  but  of  the  entire  world. 


26  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

There  will  be  no  longer  the  constant  change  from  man  to  man 
which  seems  essential  to  its  successful  working  to-day,  because  in 
him,  as  in  Caesar,  as  in  Alfred,  as  in  Washington  and  Napoleon, 
will  concentrate  all  the  hopes  and  fears  and  desires  of  his  nation, 
and  the  sole  calamity  which  can  then  happen  to  his  people  will  be 
the  cessation  of  his  power  by  death.  There  will  be  no  change  from 
theory  to  theory,  because  the  wants  and  desires  of  the  nation  will 
have  been  ascertained,  and  because  the  nation  will  find  in  him  their 
complete  expression  and  will  come  to  rest ;  because  he  himself  will 
feel  his  importance  to  his  people's  welfare  and  permit  no  change. 
In  his  breast  there  will  be  no  prejudice  ;  the  happiness  and  welfare 
of  all  his  vast  populations  will  be  his  desire  and  the  crown  of  his 
existence.  From  him  will  descend  by  links,  through  the  great 
officers  who  shall  stand  around  him,  to  the  lowest  man  who  shall 
hold  the  smallest  measure  of  authority,  a  chain  of  accountability  as 
rigorous  as  in  the  most  absolute  empire,  yet  freely  rendered  by  a 
consenting  people.  The  whole  time  of  the  citizen,  freed  from  the 
care  of  the  selection  of  his  rulers,  will  be  given  to  his  private 
affairs  and  to  the  material  well-being  and  progress  of  his  own  in 
dividuality. 

The  Judges  will  sit  in  their  places,  relieved  while  they  live  by 
the  amplest  provision,  against  the  necessities  of  their  material  ex 
istence,  to  detennine  dispassionately  between  the  highest  and  the 
lowest  suitor  ;  the  guardians  of  the  peace,  responsible,  grade  by 
grade,  to  that  imperial  head,  will  stand  immovably  in  their  places. 

Swift  will  be  the  execution  of  the  laws,  and  all  alike  will  share 
their  advantages,  and  be  subject  to  their  inexorable  penalties.  Wise 
men  alone,  and  those  to  whom  long  study  and  intercourse  with  their 
fellow-citizens  have  given  knowledge  of  the  public  affairs,  will 
enact  the  laws  of  the  nation.  That  will  be  their  only  duty  ;  that 
having  done,  they  will  ue  set  apart  for  the  honor  of  their  fellow- 
citizens,  and  like  the  Judges,  will  be  made  secure  against  all  mate 
rial  chance  and  changes. 

Everywhere  will  the  influence  of  that  great  head  of  the  nation 
be  felt  ;  in  every  city  and  in  every  street,  and  not  less,  over  far  dis 
tant  lands  and  seas.  As  it  was  in  imperial  Rome,  so  will  it  be  in 
America.  The  nationality  of  its  citizens  will  be  their  passport 
through  the  world.  TJieir  government  will  at  last  become  worthy 
of  themselves." 

XIX. 

On  the  question  of  the  races  among  us  and  their  future 
intercourse,  the  following  extracts  from  his   diary  give  a 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  27 

clear  expression.  If  he  failed  fully  to  comprehend  the  sys 
tem  of  our  government,  he  did  not  fail  to  clearly  see,  and,, 
as  I  believe,  rightly  estimate  these  relations. 

I  remember  a  conversation  we  had  relative  to  Liberia. 
I  had  always  been  an  advocate  of  the  separation  of  the  races 
here — this  resulted,  it  may  be,  from  my  political  education— 7 
and  I  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  the  negro  race,  that 
fruitful  source  of  our  troubles,  would  exist  no  longer  on  this 
continent.  Liberia,  I  believed,  would  be  the  eventual  out 
let  for  that  population,  and  the  Colonization  Society  the 
resolver,  in  this  respect,  of  our  sectional  agitations.*  I  had 
been  reading  on  one  occasion,  I  remember,  a  highly  inter 
esting  report  of  the  proceedings  of  that  Society,  and  I  spoke 
to  M.  Armais  of  its  great  usefulness  and  advantages  to  the 
black  race.  He  replied  to  me:  "There  is  no  doubt,  Dr. 
Jamieson,  that  some  black  men  could,  with  advantage  to 
themselves  and  to  you,  be  sent  to  Liberia.  England  finds  it 
necessary  to  send  many  of  her  people  to  Australia  ;  Germany 
and  other  European  nations  willingly  part  with  portions  of 
their  populations ;  expatriation  may  serve  a  good  purpose, 
in  fact,  for  certain  men  of  all  colors.  But  Liberia,  in  the 
sense  of  its  being  the  final  home  to  which  the  negro  race  in 
America  may  turn  its  weary  eyes,  is  very  palpably  a  delu 
sion.  The  Liberia  idea,  you  will  admit,  with  me,"  he  said, 
"  has  mainly  this  basis :  that  the  negro,  having  come  from 
Africa,  should  return  thither  and  there  build  up  a  civiliza 
tion  and  establish  a  nationality." 

uThat  is  very  nearly  the  truth,"  I  replied. 

"  If  the  proposition,  then,  be  a  correct  one  for  the  negro 
race,"  he  said,  "it  is  also  for  every  other  race  which  has. 
emigrated  to  America.  The  descendants  of  the  Dutch  found 
ers  of  New  York  should  take  steamers  for  Amsterdam,  again 
open  their  ancestors'  old  shops  and  re-commence  their  old 
trades.  The  Puritan  people  of  New  England  should  also 
re-emigrate  and  work  out  their  salvation  in  the  land  of  their 
ancestors.  Your  German  farmers  should  quit  their  broad 

*  Appendix,  XII. 


28  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

acres  and  wagon  back  their  way  to  your  sea  coasts  to  embark 
for  the  narrow  fields  of  their  forefathers.  For,  however  un 
favorably  this  might  affect  the  common  sense  of  the  world, 
it  is  precisely  that  which  the  Colonization  Society  proposes 
to  do  with  the  black  race.  But  however  practicable  this 
theory  might  be  for  other  races,"  he  said,  "I  find  in  it,  for 
the  black  race,  an  insuperable  difficulty.  That  race  has  be 
come  mixed  up  with  your  race  to  the  extent  of  a  million  or 
more  of  souls,  and  you  cannot  separate  its  wfhite  and  black 
elements.  Yet,  this  it  wrould  be  necessary  to  do  to  retain 
here  what  is  white,  and  to  send  there  what  is  black.  You 
would  do  too  great  an  injustice  to  your  own  race.  The 
humanitarian  feeling  of  the  whole  world  would  be  shocked 
at  the  grief  you  would  cause  to  the  white  fathers  and  moth 
ers  of  these  unfortunate  indivisible  million  human  souls."* 

XX. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  of  the  black  race  was,  in 
his  view,  to  be  effected  in  another  manner  and  by  other  in 
strumentalities. 

The  following  extract  from  his  diary  contains  his  ideas 
on  this  subject : 

"  Many  theories  exist  as  to  the  origin  of  man,  but  whichever 
one  of  them  may  be  correct,  it  is  very  clear  that  the  earth  was  not 
filled  at  one  time  with  the  ancestors  of  all  the  races  now  living. 
The  negro  and  the  Caucasian  did  not  originate  under  the  same  in 
fluences  of  climate,  soil  and  production.  There  were,  probably,  at 
a  remote  period,  negroes  in  Africa  only.  There  were  probably  white 
men  in  Caucasia  only  ;  and  tawny  men  in  the  Indies  and  America. 

There  were,  certainly,  large  unoccupied  regions  on  the  earth, 
and  there  were  migrations  to  those  unoccupied  regions.  These  mi 
grations  were,  as  certainly,  the  forerunners  of  interminglings  and 
the  origin  of  new  types  of  manhood  on  the  earth.  And  what  is 
very  apparent  to  the  most  casiial  observer,  is  the  fact,  that  a  like 
migration  is  individualizing  this  age  and  this  country.  There  is  a 
great  trans-oceanic  current  pouring  over  these  shores — Norwegians, 
Swedes  and  Danes,  Germans,  Hungarians,  Spaniards,  Russians, 
Poles,  Frenchmen  and  Italians,  Chinamen  and  Celts — three  conti- 

*  Appendix,  XII. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS. 


29 


nents,  in  a  word,  transmitting  their  populations  to  a  fourth  conti 
nent.  The  intermingling  palpably  results  and  produces  a  change 
and  development  like  in  its  character  to  what  must  have  been  those 
earlier  changes  of  the  human  race.  But  what  seems  more  incredi 
ble,  but  which  is  as  undeniably  true,  is  the  fact  that  the  black  race 
is  more  than  any  other  apparent  in  this  intermingling.*  The  other 
races  are  superior  in  point  of  intelligence  ;  the  negro  race  sur 
passes  them  in  exuberance  of  vitality  and  adaptiveness  to  the  cli 
mate,  soil  and  production  of  the  middle  land  of  this  continent. 
There  is  but  little  intermingling,  it  is  evident,  between  the  Teutonic 
and  the  Celtic,  or  between  the  Celtic  and  the  Hebrew  races.  In 
fact,  all  the  other  races  of  this  migration  more  slowly  resolve 
themselves  ;  but  the  intermingling  of  all  these  races  with  the  negro 
race  has  changed  the  whole  character  of  the  population  of  Central 
America,  Mexico  and  the  West  Indiesf  and  formed  a  new  race. 
New  Grenada  has  as  many  of  that  new  race  as  of  all  other  races. 
Venezuela,  Ecuador  and  Peru  contain  large  majorities  of  that  new 
race.  In  Brazil  it  outnumbers  the  whole  remaining  population  by 
more  than  half  a  million.^  One  half  of  the  entire  continent  is 
already  peopled  in  nearly  equal  numbers  with  the  other  races  and 
that  new  race.  In  their  own  slave  states  there  are  now  a  million, 
or  more,  of  that  new  race.  All  of  these  women  and  men  share 
their  blood.  By  a  law  of  nature,  which  has  been  unchangeable  for 
all  ages  on  the  earth,  the  dark  skinned  man  can  exist  only  in  the 
tropic,  as  the  fair  skinned  man  can  exist  only  in  the  temperate, 
regions  of  the  earth.  In  conformity  with  this  law,  the  emigration 
from  Northern  Europe  seeks  the  Northern  States  of  America,  and 
establishes  there  its  power  ;  in  conformity,  also,  with  this  law,  the 
Spaniard,  the  Frenchman,  the  Portuguese,  the  Chinese  and  the 
Negro  are  filling  up  and  establishing  an  empire  over  the  tropic  land 
of  the  continent ;  and  in  conformity  with  this  law,  what  remains  of 
the  North  Europe  emigration  there,  instinctively  tends  to  base  itself 
on  the  more  enduring  frame  of  the  negro,  and  create  an  enduring 
population — the  basis  of  a  new  civilization. § 

The  other  races  in  Central  America,  in  Mexico,  the  West 
Indies,  and  in  their  own  Gulf  States,  who  refuse  to  accede  to  this 
law,  are  being  set  aside,  and  will  be  finally  altogether  obliterated. 
The  climate,  soil  and  productions  of  those  regions  are  compelling 
their  unchangeable  result,  and  statesmen  will  find  it  as  little  prac 
ticable  to  revoke  this  law  of  nature,  which  has,  in  all.  ages,  and 


*  Appendix,  V. 

t  Appendix,  V,  VI,  VII. 

J  Appendix,  VIII. 

§  Appendix,  I,  U,  III. 


3o  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

which  will  continue,  to  control  the  tropic  belt  of  ground  around  the 
earth,  as  the  churchmen  found  it  to  revoke  the  law  by  which  the 
earth  itself  keeps  swinging  through  its  circuit. 

The  Eighteenth  Diospolitan  dynasty  whose  Pharaohs  swayed  the 
Egyptian  Empire  in  the  height  of  its  power,  transmitted  an  inter 
mingled  negro  and  Caucasian  blood  down  through  two  hundred  years 
without  change  ;  the  records  of  that  intermingled  kingly  race  yet 
endure  ;  their  very  images  endure,  their  story  has  begun  to  repeat 
itself  in  this  new  continent,  and  the  end  is  not  death.  The  dark 
races  throughout  the  whole  southern  section  of  these  States  remain 
healthful  and  strong,  while  their  own  race,  which  they  fear,  by  this 
intermingling,  may  perish,  degenerate.  The  races  of  Northern 
Europe  develope  in  the  great  West ;  climate,  soil,  and  production 
justify  their  continuance  there  ;  there  eventually  will  be  the  seat 
of  their  empire  on  this  continent.  From  the  Eastern  seaboard,  lank, 
restless  and  cadaverous,  they  wander  Southward  and  Westward. 
In  the  South,  effete,  sallow,  and  fever- worn,  they  waste  away. 

Even  here,  in  this  middle  coast  land,  they  give  evidence  of 
their  decay.  The  old  families,  if  I  may  judge  from  the  remarks  I 
daily  hear,  sink  into  obscurity,  and  lose  their  places  and  their  power, 
and  their  city's  charities  are  monuments  of  a  declining  health  and 
influence.  I  see,  on  every  side,  institutions  for  deaf  and  dumb 
children  ;  schools  for  blind  children  ;  asylums  for  idiot  children,  and 
schools  for  feeble-minded  children.  I  meet,  also,  in  their  streets, 
limb-straightening  practitioners,  and  I  see  infirmaries  opened  by 
sight-restoring,  ear-opening,  and  teeth-restoring  men.  Death  puts 
on  his  crown,  resolutely,  before  them  ;  they  who  acknowledge  no 
other  king — early  and  late,  bow  before  him. 

But  they  vaunt  themselves,  everywhere,  of  the  endurance  of 
their  race,  and  arguments  rarely  convince  men — not  the  less  am  I 
content — the  event  will  forego  argument. 

The  first  blow  struck  against  the  slaveholder  will  be  under  the 
cry  of  negro  brotherhood,  and  the  negro  will  rise  there  as  he  rose  in 
Egypt  centuries  agone. " 

— Diary,  January  25th,  1860. 

XXL 

Such  were  his  views  as  to  the  ultimate  relation  of  the 
races  here.  The  social  problem  agitating  our  country  was,  as 
he  believed,  through  the  violence  of  war,  and  by  the  slower 
processes  of  nature,  to  have  its  resolution  in  a  new  race. 
That  race,  he  believed,  would  extend  over  a  vast  area,  com 
prising  the  whole  middle  land  of  this  continent.  Over  it, 
as  over  all  the  others,  he  further  believed,  the  dominion  of 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  31 

the  Saxon  race  would  extend.  To  that  race,  highest  in  point 
of  intelligence,  naturally  belonged,  he  believed,  a  rule  over 
the  entire  continent,  and  in  its  ultimate  government,  or 
rather  in  the  energy,  will  and  intelligence  of  the  race  itself, 
he  had,  as  I  have  said,  the  most  entire,  and  to  me,  very 
grateful  confidence. 

Amid  all  the  disorder  and  incompetency  which  he  saw 
here,  and  which  to  one  educated  as  he  had  been  under  a  strict 
military  system,  was  utterly  bewildering,  he  yet  believed  the 
future  was  always  brightening  before  us,  and  we  were  break 
ing  down  all  the  barriers  of  caste  and  laws  derived  from  old 
civilizations  and  enlarging  into  one  unbroken  empire,  a 
government  looking  directly  up  from  the  people  to  one  cen 
tralized  expression  of  power.  Of  his  views  of  the  future 
vastness  and  present  power  of  our  nation,  the  following 
extract  from  his  diary  gives  evidence : 

' '  The  wildest  dreams  of  the  theorists  of  the  old  world  dwarf 
away  before  the  extending  power  of  this  government.  Like  a  giant, 
it  puts  forth  its  hands  in  every  direction.  Its  limits  will  soon  be  the 
ocean  boundaries  of  one-half  the  world.  In  a  little  while  the  land 
which  lies  between  its  States  and.  those  Northern  seas  to  which  its 
venturous  fishermen  voyage,  the  islands  of  the  Pacific,  which  lie  in 
the  track  of  its  vessels  to  the  Indies,  the  more  valuable  islands  of 
the  Atlantic  which  adjoin  its  Southern  seaboard,  will  be  part  of  its 
domain.  It  will  dominate  British  America  and  Russian  America, 
Mexico  and  Central  America.  The  whole  area  of  land  below  the 
equator  will  also  be  gathered  into  its  wide  empire.  Russia  will  but 
a  little  longer  hold  territory  here.  The  waning  power  of  Spain  this 
country  can,  at  its  will,  destroy.  But  if  the  territory  of  the  Ameri 
can  nation  will  be  vast,  how  great,  also,  will  be  its  population.  It 
will  number  within  the  century  a  hundred  million  of  citizens  ;  of 
the  Saxon  race  there  will  be  fifty  millions  ;  of  the  dark  and  black 
races  there  will  be  an  equal  number. 

They  represent  all  religions,  all  climates  and  all  civilizations 
on  the  face  of  the  globe,  and  each  is  here  to  lend  the  strength  of 
his  individual  nature  to  the  well-being  of  all." 

—Diary,  July  8th,  1860. 

There  was  always  that  steady  assurance  in  M.  Armais' 
breast,  as  theje  was  in  many  others  then,  which  now  looks 


32  MINDKX  ARMAIS. 

like  a  spirit  of  prophecy.  This  conversation,  after  the  elec 
tion  of  that  year  (November  15,  1860),  I  take  as  the  fullest 
expression  of  the  fact ;  it  shows  how  certain  was  his  presci 
ence  of  our  political  condition. 

"  Doctor,  the  North  has  now,  you  say,  obtained  the 
mastery  for  four  years  ;  so  many  ballots  in  so  many  boxes, 
deposited  against  so  many  ballots  in  so  many  other  boxes 
deposited — so  many  millions  here  against  so  many  millions 
there,  give  assurance  of  the  result ;  but  it  has,  I  believe,  done 
more,  it  has  balloted  itself  a  long  way  beyond  four  years,  a 
long  way,  in  fact,  towards  a  new  future. 

Much  jargoning  clearly  goes  on  among  the  people  whose 
ballots  were  fewer  than  the  others  ;  much  jargoning,  clearly, 
but  in  a  different  spirit,  among  those  who  deposited  more 
of  those  popular  evidences  of  right  and  truth  and  power. 
But  jargoning  does  not  bring  men  to  any  satisfactory 
end ;  a  great  number  of  bonfires  are  being  made  by 
boys,  and  many  dinners  eaten  by  men,  and  a  great  exodus 
goes  on  from  every  workshop  towards  your  capital,  to 
obtain  increased  duties, — workshop  men  in  other  countries 
from  underselling  them.  I  see  foreign  dealers  in  French 
wines  and  English  wares  also  in  some  agitation  about 
this  ;  but  something  more  is  also  visible  to  me.  I  see  a  gaunt 
old  man,  with  a  rope  dangling  about  his  neck,  rising  out  of 
his  grave  ;  his  wounds  fresh  upon  him — his  eyes  blood- 
shotten,  with  the  tension  of  an  ignominious  death.  South 
ward  he  is  going  along  the  dusty  roads  from  the  bleak 
place  of  his  burial,  followed  by  a  great  multitude  that 
no  man  can  number ;  and  I  hear  voices  shouting  his 
burial  dirge,  the  paen  of  his  resurrection.  I  see  him 
marching  on  ;  I  see  drops  of  his  blood  trickle  down  afresh 
and  run  together  into  rivulets  and  rivers  of  blood  ;  I  hear 
every  agony  of  his  death  uttered  again  by  innumerable 
voices  ;  I  see  him  marching  on,  through  the  valley,  along 
the  mountain-side,  in  the  dark  lagoon,  in  the  wilderness.  I 
hear  every  agony  of  his  death  repeated  again  and  again,  for 
ever.  I  see  him  marching  on  ;  a  broad  and  bloody  pathway 
through  your  land,  those  ballots  have  made  plain  to  me." 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  33 

I  said  to  him,  "  Aniiais,  I  can  only  see  the  bonfires,  and 
the  boys,  the  dinners,  and  the  disappointed  men."  He  replied 
to  me,  "  I  see  him  marching  on." 

XXII. 

When  the  imminence  of  the  war  was  beginning  to  be 
apparent  to  every  one,  M.  Armais  asserted  that  it  would 
result  in  the  immediate  elevation  of  the  negro  race  through 
out  the  Southern  States.  He  expected  a  simultaneous  rising 
of  that  race.  The  man  of  Virginia,  whom  he  accepted  as  a 
saviour,  he  believed,  if  not  in  a  physical  sense,  no  less  really, 
had  risen  from  his  grave — that  the  myriads  of  that  race 
would  follow  him  bearing  aloft  the  charters  and  laws  he  had 
written  for  them — that  by  a  decisive  blow  that  race  would 
assume  power. 

What  we  felt,  his  education,  the  very  qualities  of  his 
nature,  made  possible  to  him,  he  believed  to  be  possible  for 
the  whole  negro  race.  The  incredible  elevation  of  that  race 
which  the  five  succeeding  years  accomplished  he  believed  to 
be  the  result  of  one  short  hour  of  revolution,  and  that  hour, 
it  might  be,  the  very  one  in  which  we  were  speaking.  So 
certain  he  believed  this  result  to  be,  so  present  was  it  before 
him,  that  it  was  difficult  to  hold  him  to  any  argument. ,  Imme 
diately  after  the  passage  of  the  first  secession  ordinance,  of 
South  Carolina  (Dec.  20, 1860),  I  engaged  him,  but  with  only 
partial  success,  in  an  argument,  the  substance  of  which  fol 
lows  here  : 

I  said,  "  The  ordinance  of  secession  has  been  passed  by 
the  State  of  Soiith  Carolina." 

u  Yes,"  he  replied,  "a  State  has  dissolved  its  connection 
with  your  Government." 

"It  is  a  State  only  that  has  gone,"  I  replied  ;  "and  we, 
abiding  firm  in  our  strength  and  principles,  will  say,  'go  in 
peace.'  " 

"You  speak  truly,  Dr.  Jamieson,  when  you  say  a  State 
only  has  gone  ;  but  it  is  one  link  taken  from  the  chain  that 
moored  the  old  slave  hulk  to  the  granite  hills ;  it  is  one  pier 


34  MINDKN  ARMAIS. 

fallen  from  the  bridge  over  which  the  fugitive  was  carried 
back." 

"Surely  you  will  admit,  then,  M.  Armais,  that  self- 
government  is  no  delusion  here ;  every  State  does  what 
seems  good  for  it.  Even-  State  stands  alone,  controlling  its 
own  territory." 

"  It  would  seem,  then,  to  you,  that  one  State  authority 
may  let  the  water  out  of  a  canal  where  it  chances  to  cross 
that  State's  boundary-line?" 

"Certainly." 

"Another  may  cut  out  the  fifty  or  a  hundred  miles  of 
your  great  continental  railways  which  may  chance  to  be 
embraced  within  its  borders?" 

"Each  State  has  such  rightful  power." 

"Another,  controlling  one  Hundred,  or  two  hundred 
miles  of  your  coast,  may  open  its  ports  to  the  enemies  of 
the  rest,  and  still  another  destroy  the  revenue  of  your  Gov 
ernment  by  making  its  own  ports  free  to  the  world?" 

"I  hope  we  may  never  see  the  exercise  of  this  power." 

"  It  has  been  exercised  in  that  ordinance,  fully  and  fin 
ally  ;  and  now  you  expect,  Dr.  Jamieson,  that  your  canal 
capitalists  \vill  take  the  load  out  of  this  boat,  lying  dry  up 
on  the  drained  bottom  of  the  canal,  and  put  it  on  the  backs  of 
the  mules  till  they  go  around  that  enclosed  State  and  come 
to  another  where  the  water  may  be  allowed  to  flow.  The 
railroad  traveler  will  take  up  his  valise  at  the  line  of  that 
State  which  has  cut  the  railroad  on  which  he  was  travelling, 
and  walk  around  to  the  line  of  a  State  whose  pleasure  it 
may  be  to  let  it  remain." 

"These  do  not  seem  possible  contingencies." 

"These  are  the  actual  facts  of  the  separation;  and  let 
me  tell  you,  Dr.  Jamieson,  that  no  wall  could  be  built 
around  that  State,  or  any  other,  strong  enough  to  make  that 
ordinance  valid  one  hour.  National  division  by  the  narrow 
line  of  States  is  no  longer  possible.  It  is  the  weak  attempt 
of  proud,  but  narrow  brains,  to  enforce  the  ideas  of  a  cen 
tury  or  more  ago,  in  this  country,  against  the  rush  and 
£rasp  and  purpose  of  to-day.  Your  innumerable  popula- 


MINDKN  ARMAIS.  35 

tions,  moving  backward  and  forward  across  a  continent,  will 
not-  be  restrained  by  narrow  lines  of  States,  or  narrower 
men  within  them.  The  great  inland  territories,  to  which 
the  old  States  are  necessary  avenues,  will  not  be  shut  in,  by 
little  aristocracies,  from  the  ocean. 

Their  populations  will  go  down  your  Western  rivers, 
if  they  have  to  force  themselves  over  State-line  obstacles 
every  mile  of  their  way.  Your  nationality  must  have  a 
clear  field  over  the  whole  continent.  The  hour  has  come. 
The  light  streams  down  from  the  scaffold.  The  land  is 
filled  with  lurid  burnings  and  the  awful  hate  of  the  chasms 
of  perdition  itself,  a  seething  sea  of  blood  through  the  midst 
of  the  land." 

To  these  words  he  always  came,  and  I  always  endeav 
ored  to  draw  him  back  again  from  what  then  seemed  to  me 
meaningless  expressions  of  hatred,  fire  and  blood. 

I  said,  "  Your  reasonings  might  not  be  without  a  sig 
nificance  for  other  countries,  but  State  divisions  here  were 
the  basis  of  the  Government ;  it  was  against  the  idea  of  cen 
tralization  that  we  struggled  in  our  revolution,  and  the  con 
stitutions  and  laws  on  which  rested  State  divisions  were  the 
only  barriers  to  absolute  rule  on  this  continent." 

"  Therein  is  the  cause  of  the  struggle.  The  history  of 
the  world  will  repeat  itself  here,  and  with  its  unchangeable 
result.  In  so  vast  a  territory  as  you  have,  Dr.  Jamieson, 
unity  of  action,  without  which  you  can  wield  no  effective 
power,  can  only  be  attained  by  centralization.  Your  many- 
headed  hydra  of  States  has  got  into  its  own  way ;  it  will 
devour  itself  unless  you  chain  up  the  heads  and  give  it  a 
keeper.  Like  all  other  nations,  you  will,  at  last,  wisely 
accept  the  great  fact  in  government,  that  one  is  the  majority 
of  the  multitude,  and  confess  that  your  country  has  become 
more  truly  expressive  of  the  popular  will,  when  it  more 
absolutely  concentrates  its  power  in  one  hand.  Brutus  was 
the  fanatic  of  a  faction  ;  Caesar  the  true  representative  of  the 
whole  Roman  people." 

On  the  27th  of  December  he  came  to  my  house,  and  in 
his  usual  manner,  said :  "  Doctor,  negotiations  are  now  con- 


36  MIXDEN  ARMAIS. 

eluded.  One  of  those  decisive  actions  which  shuts  the  door 
between  the  past  and  the  future  has  had  place  in  the  harbor 
of  Charleston." 

It  was  on  my  lips  to  answer:  "Your  prophecies  are 
resultless ;"  but  I  restrained  myself,  although  I  was  clear  in 
my  own  convictions.  I  said  :•  "  Beyond  perad venture,  our 
President  will  return  the  commandant  of  that  post  to  Fort 
Moultrie,  and  the  political  and  military  condition  will  be 
as  it  was  before." 

" It  will  not  be  done,"  he  replied;  "there  is  no  power 
in  a  man  or  in  a  government  to  restore  the  past.  That  pile 
of  masonry  where  your  flag  floated  is  even  now,  I  believe, 
crumbling  under  the  slave-holders'  cannon.  Your  President 
has  not  permitted  that  flag  to  be  taken  from  what  you  deem 
its  ark  of  safety,  and  had  it  placed  again  at  their  mercy. 
Fear,  no  less  than  honor,  has  compelled  him  to  sustain  the 
man  who  withdrew  from  those  unsafe  surroundings.  There 
is  open  war.  All  things  before  me  grow  destructive  and 
sublime.  The  flame  of  cannon  supersedes  the  breath  of 
man." 

XXIII. 

These  conversations  evidence  the  general  character  of 
M.  Armais'  opinions.  If  they  were  not  acceptable  at  the 
time,  or  at  any  time  thereafter,  they  were,  in  tone,  unobjec 
tionable.  I  look  back,  certainly,  on  his  intercourse  with 
us,  up  to  this  time,  with  unmingled  satisfaction,  and  I  leave 
now  this  portion  of  the  memoir  with  regret,  to  approach  the 
consideration  of  feelings,  the  concealment  of  which,  alone, 
saved  himself  and  Madeline  from  universal  condemnation. 
I  cannot,  even  now,  write  dispassionately  of  these  feelings. 
We  are  in  the  midst  of  an  agitation  as  intense,  in  regard  to 
the  social  relations  of  the  black  race,  as  we  were,  for  many 
years,  about  its  political  relations.  We  have  admitted  the 
fact,  that  a  man,  irrespective  of  his  complexion,  has  a  right 
to  the  ownership  of  his  muscles,  only  to  become  involved  in 
questions  as  to  his  right  to  the  ownership  of  his  senses.  We 
have  loosed  the  black  race  from  obsolete  laws,  controlling 


MINUEN  ARMAIS.  37 

its  labor ;  we  are  contending  for  the  continuance  of  obsolete 
laws  controlling  its  social  intercourse.  M.  Armais,  it  is  true, 
before  he  came  among  us,  had  lived  where  thoughts  of  dif 
ference  in  shades  of  color  had  no  existence ;  but  here,  by 
those  obsolete  laws,  all  that  he  was  in  himself  fell  upon 
senseless  stone.  Outside  his  menial  place  he  was  ail  object 
of  loathing.  The  treacherous  shades  of  a  darker  blood 
ostracised  him.  The  livery  of  the  burnished  sun  degraded 
him  from  the  status  of  a  human  being.  But  I  must,  as  he 
did,  take  human  nature  as  I  find  it.  M.  Armais'  shadowed 
face,  the  repose  of  his  eyes,  their  languor,  it  may  be  even 
their  sensuous  blackness,  had  come  to  exercise  on  Madeline's 
senses  unnatural  sympathies,  as  we  regard  them — in  a  word, 
a  passion — to  which  she  yielded  more  and  more  day  by  day. 
Betrothed  to  Henry  L,amar,  she  was  daily  committing, 
against  him,  and  his  race,  the  crime,  whatever  that  may  be, 
of  accepting  a  close  and  closer  relation  with  this  man — of 
another  race. 

XXIV. 

The  influences  by  which  M.  Armais  justified  to  Made 
line  this  passion  were  those  by  which  he  sought  to  justify, 
also,  to  us,  his  immeasurable  confidence.  He  told  her,  as  he 
told  us,  that  our  land  was  rending  in  twain — that  a  sea  of 
blood  was  dividing  our  people  forever.  He  told  her  that 
her  marriage  with  Henry  L,amar,  rather  than  her  love  to 
himself,  would  bring  on  herself  and  on  us,  disgrace  and  dis 
honor.  He  told  her  that  he  who  had  died  for  his  race  had 
risen  from  his  grave,  that  our  fathers  and  brothers  would 
follow  him,  hand  in  hand  with  the  black  race,  chanting  the 
paean  of  his  resurrection,  that  that  race  was  assuming  its 
rightful  place  and  rule  over  one-half  of  this  land,  over  those 
slave-holders  we  called  our  brothers,  but  who  were  our  mas 
ters  no  less  than  the  masters  of  that  race.  In  these  resolute 
words  of  prescience  Madeline  forgot  her  pledge  to  Henry 
Lamar  and  her  relations  to  her  race.  These  were  the  argu 
ments  which  he  addressed  to  her  reason ;  but  that  argument 
which  most  affected  her  was  addressed  to  her  senses — it  was 


38  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

the  silent  one  of  his  personal  attractiveness.  It  \vas  not 
possible  that  any  man  could  live  long  intimately  with  M. 
Annais  without  a  feeling  toward  him  of  respect  and  confi 
dence.  It  was  not  possible,  I  believe,  that  a  woman,  if  I 
am  any  judge  of  women,  could  so  live  without  a  feeling  of 
admiration.  As  I  remember  him  in  M.  Lavalle's  home,  in 
Paris,  and  as  I  remember  him  here,  I  recognize  that  influ 
ence  which  irresistibly  broke  down  the  barrier  of  race  which 
had  otherwise  divided  our  intercourse.  There  was  about 
him  strength  and  a  manly  intelligence.  There  was  also  a 
womanly  tenderness  and  passionate  nature  which  called  forth 
the  sympathies  and  controlled  the  weaknesses  of  others. 

He  was  naturally  admired  by  me  ;  he  was  as  naturally 
loved  by  Madeline.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Among  all 
the  men  I  ever  met  I  recall  not  one  face  which  has  impressed 
me  as  much  with  the  sense  of  singular  personal  attractive 
ness  as  the  face  of  M.  Annais.  He  was  a  man  of  the  new 
race  ;  freshly  nurtured  in  the  bosom  of  our  new  earth  ;  clear 
in  intellect  as  any  type  of  manhood  ;  classic  and  admirable 
as  that  statue  which  our  Story  has  chiselled  and  our  Haw 
thorne  approved  as  the  most  perfect  type  of  human  com 
pleteness.  So  it  was  like  Shakespeare's  fair  white  woman  ; 
she  turned  away  from  the  pallid  features  and  the  blue  watery 
desire  of  "  the  darlings  of  her  nation  "  and  found  in  his  dark 
features  and  passionate  eyes  satisfaction  for  her  senses  and  soul. 


In  the  Salon  Chinois,  Napoleon's  sitting  room  at  Fon- 
tainbleau,  there  stands  (1867)  a  statue  of  the  new  race  man 
as  he  comes  into  existence  in  the  West  Indies,  in  Central 
America,  and  the  Southern  States,  the  result  of  our  blood 
commingled  with  the  blood  of  the  negro  race.  This  statue 
stands  near  the  centre  of  the  Salon.  On  the  wall  before  it 
hangs  the  admirable  portrait  of  the  Empress,  by  Winter- 
halter.  The  statue  is  of  life  size.  It  is  composed  of  onyx, 
bronze  and  gold.  Cordier  has  made  three  materials  sub 
sidiary  to  the  force  and  fusion  of  his  art  You  lose  sight  of 
the  materials  of  the  statue  in  its  realness  and  singular  sen- 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  39 

suous  influence.  Its  lithe  limbs  are  rounded  almost  like  the 
limbs  of  a  woman.  A  soft  languor  rests  where  the  bloo.l 
darkens  in  the  eyes.  The  lips  part,  and  the  nostrils  are  dis 
tended  with  that  exhaustless  desire  which  characterizes  the 
new  race.  An  intense  concentration  of  passion  is  expressed 
there.  The  strength  and  languor  of  the  statue  contrasts 
strongly  with  the  pale,  spirituelle  features  of  the  portrait. 
Your  eyes  are  held  by  an  unintelligible  influence  to  the  one 
and  the  other.  Cordier  achieved  a  great  reputation  by  this 
statue  and  realized  a  high  purpose  ;  his  successful  effort  was 
to  personate  one  of  those  mestizos,  in  whom  French  blood 
has  so  largely  intermingled  and  lent  and  acquired  such  endur 
ing  advantages.  He  used  in  that  statue,  as  he  has  said,  a 
material  which  has  waited  through  many  ages  for  a  fitting 
use — bronze.  He  veined  it  through  with  gold.  His  purpose 
was  to  re-create  in  the  features  of  that  new  race,  the  first 
Apollo, — the  Apollo  as  it  was  originally  formed  in  bronze, 
without  the  support  of  garments,  added  by  the  Greeks,  to 
sustain  the  strengthless  and  unplastic  stone  ;  with  no  muscle 
unnaturally  constrained  by  unadaptable,  fragile  material ;  to 
restore  art  as  it  was  ere  its  beauty  was  sepulchred  in  white 
marble.  The  position  it  now  holds,  and  the  influence  it 
exerts  on  the  senses,  is  the  evidence  of  his  success. 


M.  Armais  himself  would  have  been  as  fit  a  model  for 
the  portraiture  ;  I  remember,  in  illustration  of  what  I  say, 
this  incident ;  we  were  on  a  summer  tour  in  1853  along  the 
Mediterranean,  fishing  and  boating  ;  one  day  Duval,  a  fellow 
student,  Armais  and  myself  had  agreed  to  a  trial  of  endurance 
in  the  water  ;  we  were  swimming  a  considerable  distance 
from  the  shore  ;  our  comrades  were  seated  on  the  smooth 
white  stones  of  the  beach  urging  us  on.  Armais,  more  lithe 
and  stronger  than  ourselves,  had  advanced  before  us,  and  was 
floating  easily  some  distance  beyond  the  point  at  which  we 
had  agreed  to  turn  back  for  the  shore.  When  we  turned  he 
joined  us  and  we  swam  together  ;  a  storm  gathering  along 


40  MINDKN   ARMAIS. 

the  sky  had  blackened  the  water,  and  the  wind  then  rising 
had  lifted  the  waves  and  broke  them  in  little  crests  of  foam. 
This  increased  the  interest  and  excitement  of  the  trial,  and 
when  the  lightning  flashed  over  us  in  its  long  ridges,  the 
admiration  of  our  comrades  broke  out  in  joyous  cheers. 
Confylent  of  our  strength,  with  renewed  endeavors  we  rivalled 
each  other.  When  still  some  distance  from  the  shore  the 
rain  began  to  fall  in  great  drops,  and  suddenly  from  the 
bosom  of  a  single  cloud  poured  down  a  stifling  torrent  of 
water.  It  was  then  no  longer  a  struggle  for  advantage,  it 
became  at  once  a  struggle  for  life.  I,  as  well  as  I  was  able, 
held  my  own  ;  Duval  showed  signs  of  exhaustion  and  called 
for  help.  Armais,  strong  and  vigorous,  struck  out  towards 
him  ;  I  turned  back  also,  but  finding  my  strength  momen 
tarily  failing,  resumed  my  weakening  contention  with  the 
choking  mass  of  falling  water  and  surging  waves.  Armais 
reached  Duval,  ready  to  sink,  and  out  of  heart  utterly ; 
entreating  him  to  be  firm  and  calm,  and  assuring  him  of  his 
own  strength,  he  bade  him  trust  to  him  entirely.  We  were 
now  the  centre  of  an  intense  and  breathless  interest  of  our 
comrades.  Strong  as  Armais  wras,  had  the  rush  of  falling 
waters  continued,  long  before  he  reached  the  shore  Duval  and 
himself  had  both  perished,  but  its  force  was  concentrated  in 
this  single  cloud,  which,  passing  towards  the  east,  soon  left 
the  air  clear  and  the  water  sensibly  sinking  from  its  violence. 
I  first,  and  soon  after  Armais,  felt  his  feet  touch  the  shelving 
bottom,  Duval  quitted  his  hold,  the  others  coming  to  his 
assistance,  drew  him  out  through  the  shallow  water.  They 
had  lain  me  down,  quite  exhausted,  cushioning  my  head 
with  their  clothes  ;  I  soon,  however,  revived  and  got  up. 
Duval  and  Armais  coming  to  me,  we  embraced  each  other, 
our  comrades  shed  tears  of  sympathy  and  over-strained  feel 
ing.  The  first  outburst  of  these  emotions  over,  I  again  sank 
back  on  the  sand.  Duval  sat  down  beside  me  ;  Armais,  still 
vigorous  as  before,  stood  upon  a  ledge  of  rocks  and  suffered 
the  fresh  air  from  the  sea  to  dry  his  wet  limbs.  The  clouds, 
broken  and  dispersed,  hung  like  a  curtain  behind  him,  down  to 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  41 

the  horizon  ;  and  the  sun  shining  out  from  the  west  poured 
around  him  its  wealth  of  gold.  Armais  drew  our  eyes  to 
him  in  admiration  ;  he  was  indeed  very  beautiful  in  that 
scene  and  hour.  In  the  light  of  the  setting  sun,  in  the  sense 
of  gratitude,  he  seemed  to  Duval  something  more  than  mortal 
— more  than  any  man  of  our  race — standing  there  in  perfect 
symmetry  and  strength,  every  muscle  of  his  body  was  dis 
tinctly  lifted  up  by  the  intense  exertion  in  the  water,  and 
almost  quivering  ;  but  his  silent  eyes  were  looking  beyond, 
across  the  sea,  as  if  wholly  unconscious  of  the  struggle  of 
life  and  death  through  which  he  had  just  passed.  The  dark, 
even  tinge  of  the  skin  was  aglow  with  the  golden  light 
of  the  sun,  and  his  hands  were  jeweled  with  the  water  drops 
that  trembled  down  the  fingers  like  precious  stones. 

XXV. 

In  the  month  of  February,  1861,  while  every  day  wras 
bringing  Madeline's  marriage  with  Henry  Lamar  nearer  ; 
while  she  had  no  longer  courage  to  refuse  marriage  with  him  ; 
while  she  had  no  longer  will  not  to  love  M.  Armais  ;  while 
her  wedding  arrangements  were  being  made,  she  went  out  to 
Mr.  Barclay's  country  house.  Her  object  was,  she  alleged, 
to  make  these  preparations  without  interruption'.  M.  Armais 
accompanied  her  for  her  protection  and  she  was  with  him 
there,  alone. 

A  silent  witness,  of  her  feelings  at  this  time,  remains — 
the  evidence  of  her  passion.  It  is  a  volume  of  Tennyson's 
poems.  On  the  fifty-eighth  page  of  this  volume  are  some 
Sapphic  verses,  a  transcription  into  English  words,  of  frenzy 
and  desire  in  a  woman.  The  following  lines  of  the  poem 
are  marked,and  the  date,  in  Madeline's  hand-writing — Feb 
ruary  1 4th,  1 86 1, — are  written  on  the  margin  of  the  leaf: 

' '  In  my  dry  brain  my  spirit  soon 

Down  deepening  from  swoon  to  swoon, 
Faints  like  a  dazzled  morning  moon." 

' '  My  heart  pierced  through  with  fierce  delight 
Bursts  into  blossom  in  his  sight. ' ' 


42  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

VI. 

"  My  whole  soul  waiting  silently, 
All  naked  in  a  sultry  sky, 
Droops  blinded  with  his  shining  eye, 
I  will  possess  him  or  will  die  ; 
I  will  grow  round  him  in  his  place, 
Grow,  live,  die,  looking  on  his  face, 
Die,  dying  clasped  in  his  embrace." 

Passion  recognizes  no  condition,  color,  or  relation  of 
humanity.  It  isolates  two  human  beings,  and  makes  for 
them  its  own  obligations.  It  blinds  them  to  what  the  world 
calls  shame  and  honor.  Madeline  and  Armais  knew  nothing 
in  those  hours  but  each  other.  They  feared  nothing.  They 
desired  nothing  in  all  the  world  but  their  passion's  eternal 
duration.  To  have  prescribed  for  them  antipathies  of  race ; 
to  have  restrained  them  by  any  other  law  than  the  law  of 
their  passion,  had  been  impossible.  The  life  of  Madeline  was 
lost  in  the  life  of  Armais.  She  was  happy  beyond  mortal 
dreams  in  him  alone ;  wondering,  trembling,  confused  in  the 
revelations  of  this  passion,  but  always  having  him  close  in 
her  heart.  Whatever  he  was  to  others, 

To  her  he  was  white  and  ruddy  ; 

His  head  was  as  the  most  fine  gold  ; 
His  eyes  were  as  the  eyes  of  doves,  by  the  rivers  of  waters  ; 

His  cheeks  were  as  a  bed  of  spices,  as  sweet  flowers ; 
His  hands  were  as  gold  rings  set  with  beryl ; 

— bright  ivory  overlaid  with  Sapphires, 
— pillars  of  marble,  set  upon  sockets  of  fine  gold, 

His  mouth  was  most  sweet :  he  was  altogether  lovely. 

This  was,  in  these  hours,  her  beloved.  This  is  every 
woman's  beloved  in  the  supreme  hour  of  passion.  It  is  not 
the  woman  or  the  man ;  it  is  the  passion  itself  which  ren 
ders  perfect  and  complete,  blinds,  transmutes,  exalts,  glori 
fies. 

XXVII. 

Day  after  day  M.  Armais  saw  with  clear  eyes  the  pas 
sing  events.  He  saw  the  fourth  day  of  March  come  and  go 
in  wordy  violence  only.  Fort  Sumter,  with  whose  abandon- 


M  IN  DEN  ARMAIS.  43 

•* 

ment  lie  had  associated  the  sudden  rising  of  his  race  to 
power,  was  not  abandoned,  and  had  not  fallen.  His  faith 
wavered.  His  passion  became  a  passion  of  despair.  But 
Madeline  lived  with  an  unquestioning  confidence.  Three 
weeks  passed,  when  there  came  with  a  rude  shock,  the  more 
rude  for  its  tenderness,  a  letter  from  Henry  Lamar.  "  Almost 
with  this  letter,"  it  said,  "I  will  be  with  you  Madeline.  I 
hear  your  voice  count  the  lessening  hours  which  separate  us, 
as  I  do  here."  Madeline,  terribly  awakened,  looked  up  to 
M.  Armais  from  this  letter — this  death  summons — with  the 
desperate  confidence  of  one  who  hopes  against  hope ;  but  she 
saw  beneath  his  tender  smile,  despair.  His  changed  counte 
nance  summoned  her  beyond  recall  to  misery.  Through  the 
splendor  of  her  passion  she  looked  blindly  outward,  as  with 
the  eyes  of  one  who,  dazzled  long  by  sunlight,  seeks  to  pene 
trate  a  darkened  room.  She  realized  that  she  must  consent 
to  that  "death  in  life"  which  comes  to  all  of  human  kind 
to  whom  is  given  love.  Lip  from  lip,  heart  from  heart, 
must  be  torn  asunder. 

XXVIII. 

A  wedding  has  its  chief  resemblance  in  a  funeral.  It 
has  its  summoning  of  forgotten  relatives.  It  has  its  out 
flow  of  tears.  It  has  its  white  flowers,  and  it  leaves  the  same 
sense  of  desolation  in  the  house.  The  beloved  and  beautiful 
one  goes  to  another  home  and  the  place  that  knew  her  shall 
know  her  no  more  forever. 

When  Madeline  was,  by  that  letter,  summoned  back, 
the  library  was  beginning  to  glitter  with  wedding  gifts.  She 
looked  at  them  as  if  they  were  offerings  to  the  dead.  She 
had  power  to  retain  so  much  composure  as  we  expect  in  a 
bride,  but  she  thought  only  of  death.  She  destroyed  her 
letters ;  she  passed  her  time  in  her  chamber.  She  knew  that 
if  she  permitted  herself  to  see  M.  Armais  her  courage  would 
be  gone. 

Henry  Lamar  came  full  of  hope  and  glad  expectancy. 
Madeline,  with  a  conquerless  resolution  from  the  hour  he 
came,  lived  before  him  a  new  life.  True  it  was  that  tears 


44  MINDKX  ARMAIS. 

f 

started  sometimes  to  her  eyes ;  true  it  was  she  often  sought 
the  silence  of  her  room.  But  what  seemed  to  him  her  filial 
devotion  heightened  the  more  her  beauty  in  his  eyes.  Mr. 
Barclay  was  not  wholly  deceived  by  this  manner,  nor  was  I. 
But  how  little  did  we  surmise  that  terrible  fatality  which 
hung  over  us.  Madeline's  manner  continued  up  to  the  week 
before  that  fixed  for  her  wedding,  then  she  began  to  break 
down.  The  days  that  followed  became  almost  unbearable. 
A  kind  of  horror  began  to  tremble  from  her  heart  without 
outward  sign.  But  not  alone  within  that  house  was  that 
horror  and  dread ;  yet  undefined,  it  was  resting  on  the  whole 
city,  the  whole  country.  The  day  foreboded  by  M.  Annais 
was  approaching,  and  although  there  was  not  yet  a  tremor 
on  the  surface  of  the  land,  by  one  of  those  terrible  convul 
sions  which  appal  the  beings  whom  God  in  His  good  pleas 
ure  creates  and  destroys,  it  was  about  to  be  rent  in  twain. 

As  to  the  condition  of  the  mind  of  M.  Armais  at  this 
time,  I  may  say  that  after  his  return  from  Mr.  Barclay's 
country  house,  at  times  it  almost  verged  on  insanity.  I 
knew  nothing  of  his  passion ;  I  could  judge  of  what 
affected  his  mind  only  by  what  he  said.  His  whole  brain 
seemed  to  concentrate  around  that  fort  which  then  held 
public  attention  and  in  whose  fate  he  believed  lay  such  im 
mediate  and  final  consequences  to  ourselves.  One  day  he 
would  come  to  me,  saying :  u  Fort  Sumter  will  fall,  and  my 
race  will  rise  to  power;  "  the  next  he  would  be  plunged  in 
despair.  I  endeavored  to  reason  with  him,  but  uselessly. 

I  said  to  him :  "  M.  Armais,  if  these  events  which  you 
predict  are  to  come  to  pass  in  this  land,  I,  myself,  would  not 
desire  to  remain  here.  After  the  marriage  of  Madeline,  Mr. 
Barclay  will  probably  be  willing  to  pass  some  time  with  me 
in  Europe.  Why  will  you  not  accompany  us  there?  v  He 
would  answer  me:  "I  shall  never  see  Europe  again." 
Changing  from  this  mood  as  positions  of  more  defiant  atti 
tude  developed  themselves,  he  would  be  as  unduly  hopeful. 
He  would  come  to  me  and  suggest  his  plans  for  the  future. 
Then  he  would  suddenly  lose  all  interest  in  life  again.  I 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  45 

accounted  for  these  moods  by  saying  to  Mr.  Barclay  that  M. 
Armais'  constant  confinement  during  the  past  three  years 
had  impaired  his  health,  but  to  me  they  were  unaccountable. 
For  some  days  before  the  one  fixed  for  the  wedding  of  Made 
line  he  did  not  leave  his  room.  He  seemed  utterly  broken 
down.  I  think,  in  my  whole  experience,  I  have  never  wit 
nessed  such  extremes  of  emotion  in  a  human  being. 

XXIX. 

The  1 4th  of  April  had  been  fixed  for  Madeline's  wed 
ding.  I  passed  the  evening  preceding  -that  day  with  Mr. 
Barclay  in  his  library.  He  was  greatly  depressed.  He  said 
to  me :  u  It  is  very  hard  to  bear  this  separation,  but  it  is 
harder,  far  harder,  to  witness  Madeline's  unhappiness."  I 
endeavored  to  calm  him.  I  reminded  him  that  Madeline 
had  borne  up  as  well  as  we  might  expect  under  these  always 
depressing  circumstances.  I  assured  him  she  would  be  more 
composed  on  the  morrow.  Mr.  Barclay  replied :  "I  thought 
I  should  have  felt  differently.  I  believed  Madeline  had 
chosen  wisely.  I  will  never  fully  regain  my  health ;  I  may 
be  here  but  a  little  longer.  If  I  could  have  seen  her  happy 
in  these  hours  it  would  have  been  a  comfort  to  me ;  but  even 
that  is  denied  me.  An  undefined  feeling  oppresses  me,  but 
I  must  strive  to  submit  to  this  separation."  He  continued: 
"There  is  trouble  everywhere.  The  future  darkens  before 
us.  The  happy  days  our  country  has  seen  it  will  see  no 
more."  I,  myself,  had  the  same  feelings,  and  we  sat  there 
for  some  time  in  silence.  It  was  after  midnight, 

M.  Armais  had  not,  as  I  have  said,  left  his  chamber  for 
several  days ;  thinking  all  in  the  house  had  retired,  following 
his  usual  habit,  he  came  to  the  library.  He  saw  us  sitting- 
there.  He  stood  motionless  in  the  doorway  a  moment,  a 
black  obelisk,  and  then  turned  away  without  speaking. 
We  heard  his  steps  on  the  stairs  going  back  to  his  room. 
We  still  continued  sitting  in  silence.  The"  shadow  of  an 
uncertain  fear  hung  over  us ;  it  was  the  shadow  of  Death. 
There  would  come  no  happy  morning  to  that  household, 


46  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

nor  to  our  land.  The  sun  that  lighted  the  dawn  of  our  ex 
istence  as  a  nation  had  already  set,  shrouded  in  the  smoke  of 
a  conflict  in  which  the  old  Union  of  our  States,  its  old  the 
ories  and  populations,  were  passing  away. 

XXX. 

Madeline  rose  early  the  next  morning  and  with  her 
bridesmaids  completed  the  toilet  she  had  chosen  for  the 
ceremony.  They  were  all  affected  by  her  manner  as  we  had 
been,  and  they  felt  a  sense  of  relief  when  they  left  her  for 
their  rooms.  A  favorite  friend  and  companion  remained 
with  her.  When  the  others  had  retired  there  was  yet  more 
than  an  hour  before  the  ceremony.  All  was  completed. 
The  orange  blossoms  were  in  her  hair ;  the  light  trembled 
on  the  ring.  She  said,  slowly,  to  herself:  "It  is  all  done." 
Her  companion  stood  watching  her,  feeling,  as  she  has  said, 
separated  from  her.  There  was  then  a  long  silence;  she 
seemed  to  be  questioning  herself.  I  believe  her  mind  was 
wavering.  She  \valked  slowly  about  the  room,  and  turning 
to  her  companion,  she  said,  in  a  slow,  decisive  tone:  "There 
is  half  an  hour  more;  leave  me  here  alone."  While  her 
companion  was  going  along  the  hall  she  heard  Madeline  lock 
the  door  of  her  chamber.  Her  decision  had  been  made. 
She  wreiit  to  the  window  and  looked  out  for  the  last  time  on 
the  old  Cathedral.  The  servants  in  the  basement  saw  her 

9 

standing  there.  She  was  looking  on  its  sacred  cross,  shining 
in  the  great  calm  of  heaven.  From  that  gilded  symbol  of 
unutterable  agony,  man's  last  consolation,  she  went  to  the 
table.  Her  conquerless  resolution  did  not  desert  her.  She 
opened  a  little  casket ;  she  took  out  and  unfolded  a  paper, 
and  laid  the  white  death  it  held  on  her  lips.  Then,  with 
slow  and  uncertain  steps,  she  turned  backward  blindly,  wan 
dering  towards  the  bed,  for  rest  from  life,  forever.  Her  com 
panion,  when  she  joined  the  other  bridesmaids,  attracted 
their  attention  by  her  paleness  and  agitation.  They  waited 
awhile,  as  Madeline  had  requested,  and  then  returned  to  her 
room.  They  found  the  door  still  locked.  They  called  her, 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  47 

but  there  was  no  answer.  Then,  greatly  alarmed,  they  came 
down  to  us.  We  all  hurried  to  Madeline's  room,  alike  agi 
tated  with  the  same  sense  of  evil.  There  was  still  no 
answer.  We  forced  open  the  door.  Madeline  was  lying  on 
the  bed ;  the  crushed  orange  blossoms  were  broken  from  the 
fastenings  in  her  hair ;  her  face  was  buried  in  the  pillow ; 
her  hands  were  clenched  tight  together. 

She  was  dead. 

She  had  perished  at  the  very  border  of  that  sea  of  blood. 
One  hour  longer  and  her  marriage  with  Henry  L,amar  would 
have  been  impossible.  In  that  silent  room  we  heard  the 
tumult  of  the  maddened  people,  surging  with  hoarse  mur 
murs  along  the  streets. 

But  should  we  have  grieved?  A  life  of  suffering,  how 
ever  it  had  terminated,  had  been  spared  her.  Madeline's 
true  marriage  had  become  consummate  and  eternal  in  that 
action.  Her  enforced  union  with  a  man,  whom  from  that 
hour  we  loathed  and  condemned,  whose  life  from  that  hour 
we  sought  to  destroy  ;  over  whose  unmarked  grave  we  shed 
no  tear ;  whose  land  and  people  we  called  accursed,  and  de 
stroyed,  was  made  forever  impossible. 

XXXI. 

That  day  was  one  of  horror,  not  in  that  room,  by  that 
bedside  only,  but  across  a  whole  continent.  Lamar,  to  save 
his  life  from  the  sudden  indiscriminate  rage  of  the  people, 
had  fled  from  Mr.  Barclay's  house.  Human  nature  had 
changed  to  demoniasm  in  one  short  hour.  We  sought  the 
slaveholders'  lives  with  an  unquenchable,  unappeasable  hate, 
and  the  prophecies  of  M.  Armais'  brain  were  justified. 

The  true  reason  of  Madeline's  death  is  well  known 
among  those  for  whom  this  memoir  is  written.  The  reason 
I  gave  at  the  time  was  satisfactory  to  all,  beyond  these,  who 
expressed  any  sympathy  for  Mr.  Barclay's  family.  Hatred 
to  the  slaveholders  absorbed  every  other  feeling.  Death 
itself  we  felt  to  be  a  happy  release  from  a  marriage  with  one 
of  those  who  were  seeking  to  imperil  the  integrity  and  set 
at  defiance  the  flag  of  our  nation. 


48  ^IIXDKN  ARMAIS. 

XXXII. 

From  the  hour  of  Madeline's  death  M.  Arniais  had  but 
a  single  purpose — to  give  up  his  life,  as  a  sacrifice,  in  com 
mon  with  many  of  his  race,  for  the  accomplishment  of  the 
result  which  he  had  in  view  in  coming  to  this  country.  He 
believed,  from  the  first,  that  the  negroes  were  the  only  sure 
allies  on  which  our  people  could  rely  in  this  desperate  strug 
gle.  I  remember  a  conversation  with  him,  in  which  he 
indicated  to  me  what  then  seemed  an  impossible  condition  of 
our  struggle.  He  said:  "Your  old  Union  is  gone.  The 
slaveholders  will  live  and  die  your  enemies;  they  loathe 
you;  they  despise  and  execrate  you.  You  hate,  you  fear, 
you  would  destroy  them.  You  have  called,  for  many  years, 
the  black  man  your  brother.  He  is  your  brother,  and  Time, 
the  justifier,  will  show  my  \vords  to  be  true.  There  is  110 
safety  for  you  in  this  war  unless  you  consent  to  march  side 
by  side  with  that  race,  and  this  you  will  ultimately  do." 
And  when  I  told  him  I  thought  our  race  would,  under  no 
circumstances,  arm  the  black  man,  he  said:  "You  will  do 
more.  You  will  make  the  flag  of  your  nation  his  flag  also  ; 
you  will  at  last  make  it  the  standard  of  your  race  and  mine." 

The  great  event  of  the  2  ad  of  September,  1862,  affected 
him  as  it  did  the  whole  country,  profoundly,  but  he  said  : 
u  Emancipation  is  not  the  end,  it  is  the  beginning  of  the 
work  which  is  to  be  done,  before  this  struggle  between  the 
South  and  North  populations  will  close.  The  legislation  of 
caste  and  privilege  must  be  wholly  obliterated  from  your 
statute  books,  your  liturgies,  and  social  codes  ;  there  cannot 
be  black  privileges  and  white  privileges  anywhere  in  these 
States.  One  part  of  the  problem  has  been  solved  to-day  by 
this  extraordinary  representative  of  your  race  ;  that  other 
part  will  follow  in  its  time,  for  you  cannot  carry  on  without 
continual  disturbance  a  government  for  free  men,  with  laws, 
usages  and  customs  in  any  part  of  your  domain,  suitable  only 
for  slaves.  Antipathies  will  develop  themselves  there  and 
will  become  stronger  as  the  fonner  slaveholder,  unadaptable 
to  labor,  impoverishes  and  enfeebles  there,  and  the  black  race 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  49 

strengthens,  as  it  will  continually  strengthen  there,  under 
this  emancipation.  It  is  only  by  the  removal  of  their  cause 
—these  obsolete  laws — that  these  antipathies  will  cease.  This 
has  been  the  result  upon  every  other  race  here  which  you 
have  put  upon  the  same  plane  with  yourselves,  and  will  be 
the  same  with  the  black  race  there. 

If  you  would  now  reimpose  upon  the  other  races  which 
arrive  year  after  year  in  your  States,  from  Kurope,  the  disa 
bilities  which  will  remain  in  the  South  upon  the  black  race 
after  this  war's  close,  you  would  relegate  them  also  back  to 
their  antagonistic  condition  in  Europe,  and  your  whole  civil 
ization  in  these  States  would  end  in  .struggle  after  struggle 
between  these  races,  as  it  does  there. 

No  prejudice  between  the  wThite  and  black  races  here  is 
all  all  comparable  either  in  extent,  duration  or  bitterness,  with 
the  prejudices  between  the  races  of  Europe,  which  emigrate 
here.*  They  live  there,  under  codes  and  customs  intolerable 
to  humanity,  which  brutalize  them,  and  so  it  is  they  are 
ready  to  destroy  each  other  on  any  pretext ;  and  this  will  go 
on  there  until  at  last  they  will  carry  down  their  governments 
and  every  sacred  thing,  below  resurrection.  When  they 
reach  these  shores  all  these  disabilities  are  at  once  removed, 
and  forever — marriage  for  them  here  is  free,  one  race  with 
the  other  ;  they  are  equal  in  elective  franchise  ;  the  roads  of 
intercourse  are  as  free  to  one  as  to  the  other  ;  their  churches 
stand  upon  one  common  foimdation,  separate  wholly  from 
the  State  ;  education  is  as  free  and  adequate  to  one  as  to  the 
other ;  military  service  with  its  robbery  of  their  lives  has 
ended,  and  their  homes  are  secure  from  the  violence  of  their 
former  masters  ;  and  so  it  is  their  hatreds,  centuries  long, 
disappear  also  at  once  and  forever.  And  when  you  shall 
have  given  the  negro  race  the  same  rights  and  privileges 
which  you  have  given  to  the  other  races  here,  and  so 
completed  the  work  of  emancipation,  you  will  have  removed 
from  that  race  also  as  from  the  rest,  all  their  and  your  anti- 

*  Appendix,  XL 


50  MINDKN   ARMAIS. 

pathies,  and  with  them  the  last  cause  of  difference,  as  far  as 
we  see  to-day,  to  the  progress  of  your  country. 

Has  their  longer  life,  here,  the  centuries  long  toil  of 
their  hands,  their  service  to  your  race  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,  and  their  close  domestic  relations*  entitled  them  to 
less  privileges  than  you  accord  to  strangers  of  other  races 
coining  here  without  character,  thrust  upon  your  shores  from 
the  hovels  and  lazar-houses  of  Europe  ?  This  does  not  seem 
credible,  but  if  it  shall  be  so — if  because  you  have  denied  them 
every  right  common  to  humanity,  you  wrill  still  deny  them 
education,  the  marriage  rite  and  the  elective  franchise,  as  freely 
as  you  do  to  other  races  here,  how  great  will  be  the  shame 
to  your  civilization  !  " 

I  said  to  him,  that  should  the  war  result  in  the  oblitera 
tion  of  the  old  State  lines  I  did  not  see  how  it  would  be 
possible  to  prevent,  eventually,  the  application  of  the  general 
principles  of  our  government  to  every  race  in  the  same 
manner.  He  said  :  "  With  or  without  State  lines,  the  underly 
ing  principle  of  your  government  will  be  maintained,  and 
that  I  understand  from  your  great  Declaration  to  be,  an 
absolute  equality  of  right  in  man,  irrespective  race." 

XXXIII. 

The  Emancipation  Proclamation  settled  one  great  issue 
before  the  country,  but  another  immediately  rose — the  black 
man's  elevation  to  a  military  plane  with  our  white  soldiers — 
and  the  one  issue  seemed  as  hard  to  resolve,  as  the  other  far 
broader  one.  Yet,  day  by  day  the  chasm  widened.  Day  by 
day  our  race  came  into  closer  companionship  with  the  black 
race  ;  the  slaveholders  pressed  us  011  every  side,  they  swept 
up  to  the  gates  of  our  Capital  again  and  again,  and  hard 
necessity  at  last  brought  the  negro  to  this  plane.  On  the 
2 oth  day  of  January,  1863,  the  Proclamation  having  gone 
into  effect  on  the  first,  M.  Armais'  assurances  were  justified- 
Our  flag,  for  the  first  time,  floated  over  the  two  races.  M. 

•Appendiv.  X  . 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  51 

Armais  had  bided  that  hour.  Since  Madeline's  death  he  had 
lived  only  for  that  hour.  He  accepted  again  an  obsure  place. 
Our  laws,  unkind  to  him  in  war  as  in  peace,  would  allow  no 
other.  In  the  first  negro  regiment  of  the  war — the  Fifty- 
fourth  Regiment  of  Massachusetts  Volunteers — he  enrolled 
himself  as  a  private. 

XXXIV. 

M.  Armais  still  kept  his  obscure  place,  but  his  race  was 
now  assuming  its  higher  one — on  the  common  platform  of 
man.  '  We  rode  together  in  conveyances  on  the  public  streets. 
We  dined  together  at  public  tables.  We  took  seats  together 
in  churches.  Merchants  of  my  acquaintance  called  upon  M. 
Armais.  My  professional  friends  invited  him  to  their  houses. 
The  uniform  which  he  wore  demanded  and  obtained  recogni 
tion.  Having  taken  a  military  position  for  the  Union,  he 
had  become  part  of  the  great  controlling  force  of  public 
opinion.  The  bloody  tide  of  the  rebellion  had  at  last  swept 
over  the  door-sills  of  the  advocates,  as  well  as  the  enemies,  of 
the  socialization  of  our  races.  The  white  man  remaining  in 
civil  life,  gave  place  by  the  authority  of  law,  to  the  black 
man.  They  stood  before  our  doors  for  our  protection — a 
shield  between  us  and  our  adversaries.  I  dined,  I  remember, 
with  M.  Armais,  by  invitation,  with  a  gentleman  who,  in 
many  respects,  might  be  considered  the  head  of  social  life  in 
New  England.  The  commander  of  the  regiment  in  which 
M.  Armais  had  enrolled  his  name  was  present.  Two  years 
before,  with  the  tone  of  feeling  then  existing,  such  a  thing 
would  have  been  impossible  in  America.  I  contrasted  it 
with  the  hesitancy  I  felt  in  inviting  M.  Armais,  when  he 
first  came  here,  to  my  house.  I  was  myself  bewildered  at 
the  suddenness  of  the  change  ;  but,  I  may  observe  that  this 
change  was  not  so  sudden.  The  socialization  of  our  race  had 
been  going  on  for  two  centuries.  It  had  only  been  made 
apparent  through  the  necessities  of  our  war.  We  were  begin 
ning  to  sit  down  openly  at  tables  and  in  conveyances  with 
those  with  whom  we  had  secretly  for  all  these  years  accepted 


52  M INDEX  ARMAIS. 

a  much  nearer  relationship.*     \Ye  were  witnessing  the  pro 
gress  not  of  two  years,  but  of  two  hundred  years. 

XXXV. 

The  evening  before  M.  Armais  left,  May  2 9th,  we  were 
together.  It  will  never  be  forgotten  by  me  while  I  live.  His 
whole  life  was  laid  open  before  me.  Beyond  what  I  have 
already  written  I  may  impart  no  more  of  this  sacred  confi 
dence.  When,  with  a  heart  broken  down  with  grief,  this 
was  done,  he  took  my  hands  in  his  own  and  said  :  "  Dr. 
Jamieson,  we  part  this  night  forever."  I  was  about  to  inter 
rupt  him.  He  said  :  "  No !  do  not  say  any  word  of  hope ;  it 
is  forever."  Then  he  continued:  "I  am  about  to  die,  and 
in  these  last  hours  of  my  life,  reading  the  future  by  that  light 
which  gleams  before  dying  eyes,  with  an  intense  brightness, 
and  fades  away  into  darkness,  I  see  the  future  of  your  .land. 
Remember  my  words.  Your  race,  the  most  powerful  in  all 
the  tide  of  time,  is  lifting  to  itself  my  race,  while  it  rises  a 
world  compelling  power.  The  millions  of  its  women  and 
men,  black  and  white  women  and  men,  no  longer  separated 
in  the  currents  of  their  lives,  are  intermingling.  A  new  tidal 
wave  of  human  life  is  rising  which  shall  endure  for  man}' 
centuries.  This  is  the  meaning,  and  the  final  cause  of  this 
war  which  deluges  your  land  with  blood.  For  this  was  given 
the  life  of  the  saviour  of  our  race  ;  and  now  must  be  given 
mine,  and  the  lives  of  worthier  men  of  your  race  and  mine." 
These  were  the  last  words  he  said  to  me.  I  keep  them  in 
unfading  remembrance.  He  gave  me  then  his  papers  and 
his  diary,  and  we  parted  that  night  to  meet  on  this  earth  no 
more.  M.  Armais  did  go  forth  to  die.  The  ghostly  hands 
of  that  saviour  of  his  race  were  lifted  before  him  ;  beckoned 
him  onward.  With  a  strong  heart  he  followed,  accepting 
the  end. 

XXXVI. 

On  the  following  day,  May  3Oth,  1863,  the  54th  Regi 
ment  passed  through  the  streets  of  Boston.  The  old  flag 

•Appendices.  IT,  VTTT.  IX. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  53 

was  floating  over  them.  A  band  of  music  was  before  them 
filling  the  air  with  the  new  anthem  of  America,  "John 
Brown's  body  lies  mouldering  in  the  grave."  There  was  an 
embarkation  in  the  harbor;  a  thousand  black  men  sailed 
that  night  to  the  slaveholder's  land.  Two  months  inter 
vened  between  that  day  and  the  day  of  M.  Armais'  fore 
shadowed  death.  The  events  of  those  two  months  were  of 
dramatic  interest.  When  the  regiment  reached  Port  Royal 
it  was  welcomed  with  the  news  of  pillage  and  burning.  It 
engaged,  but  with  no  willing  hand,  in  like  pillage  and  burn 
ing.  By  an  equal  fate  the  brave  black  soldiers  of  this  regi 
ment  lighted  the  broad  path  of  desolation  through  the 
Southern  land.  At  the  close  of  these  two  months  they 
began  their  march  over  swampy,  muddy  grounds,  through 
driving  rains,  by  water  and  by  land,  and  reached  Morris 
Island  and  the  front  of  our  batteries.  They  were  ordered 
there  to  make  the  memorable  assault  on  Battery  Wagner. 

XXXVII. 

Hard  manual  labor  by  men  of  our  own  race,  digging 
and  hauling  by  night,  week  after  week,  had  advanced  and 
established  our  lines'  before  Battery  Wagner.  Forty-two 
siege-guns  and  siege  mortars  bore  on  its  landward  face.  Nine 
iron-clads,  and  twenty-five  mortar-boats,  carrying  two-hun 
dred  pound  rifled  guns,  and  eleven  and  fifteen-inch  guns 
commanded  its  face  looking  across  Charleston  Harbor.  This 
vast  enginery  of  our  Government,  General  Gilmore  had 
ordered  there  to  clutch  and  hold  that  handful  of  rebellious 
earth.  Battery  Wagner  was  a  casemated  bastion  with  a 
closed  gorge  and  moat.  It  mounted  seven  guns,  four  bear 
ing  seaward  011  the  channel,  and  three  landward  on  the 
island.  Its  moat  was  one  foot  deep  at  low  water  and  six  at 
high  water.  It  had  an  exterior  slope  of  forty  degrees 
revetted  with  cotton  and  sand  bags.  On  the  morning  of 
the  1 8th  of  July,  1863,  the  sun  rose  without  a  cloud.  It 
shone  upon  our  siege  batteries  and  iron-clads  and  on  the  low 
brown  earth- work;  it  shone  on  the  spires  of  Charleston 
which  rose  beyond  that  earth-work  and  on  the  faces  of  the 


54  MINDEN   4.RMAIS. 

slaveholders  and  their  women,  and  little  helpless  children. 
The  air  was  very  still.  The  broad  ensigns  of  onr  power 
from  a  hundred  masts  and  from  all  our  lines  of  batteries 
folded  in  their  vengeful  stars.  That  bright  summer  morn 
ing  the  bombardment  of  Battery  Wagner  began.  At  eight 
o'clock  a  little  cloud  of  smoke  eddied  up  from  one  of  its 
guns.  A  shot  plunged  out  far  across  the  channel,  lifted  and 
dipped  and  sank.  In  answer  to  that  challenge  our  mortar 
boats,  following  each  other  slowly,  in  a  circle  on  the  water, 
delivered  upon  it  a  continuous  fire.  Shots  clearly  traceable, 
ridged  and  channelled  its  sloping  sides ;  volumes  of  sand  and 
sea  lifted  high  in  the  air  as  they  broke  through  its  solid 
bomb-proofs. 

These  mortar-boats,  steadily,  through  an  hour,  delivered 
their  fire.  As  ten  o'clock  struck  from  the  church  domes  of  that 
doomed  city  a  gun  at  the  left  of  our  land  batteries  opened  as 
a  signal,  and  then  ran  along  the  line  of  these  batteries  an 
outburst  of  flame  and  smoke,  followed  by  heavy  successive 
shocks  of  sound.  To  this  the  earthwork  answered  from 
one  only  of  her  guns.  Our  fire  increased  in  frequency  and 
intensity.  The  work  of  individual  shells  was  no  longer 
traceable ;  our  land  batteries  showed  only  as  lines  of  smoke 
along  the  earth.  The  hour  of  twelve  came.  The  wind  had 
risen.  The  sky  was  filled  with  stormy  clouds.  At  that  hour 
a  grander  act  in  the  drama  began  our  mortar  boats,  one 
after  another,  withdrew  from  before  the  earthwork.  Amid 
an  interest  akin  to  awe,  our  ironclads  moved  up  the  channel. 
Among  them  was  that  Leviathan  of  modern  days,  exhumed 
from  the  inexhaustible  mines  of  iron  and  fire  in  Pennsylva 
nia,  the  Ironsides ;  four  thousand  tons  in  one  framework  of 
iron.  The  ironclads,  like  guards,  moved  beside  that  giant 
vessel.  Amid  a  welcoming  cannonade  the}'  rested  before  the 
earthwork, — black  iron  masses,  as  immovable  as  if  solidly 
bolted  to  the  roots  and  caverns  of  the  sea. 

There  was  silence  then  for  a  time,  and  then  flamed  up 
from  their  turrets'  mouths  a  sudden  fire  and  outbursting 
cloud.  From  this  cloud  and  fire  broke  through  the  air  great 


MINDKN  ARMAIS.  55 

crashes  of  sound ;  a  mass  of  earth  and  sand  lifted  up  from 
the  earthwork ;  three  tons  of  iron  from  that  one  discharge 
had  been  buried  there.  That  outburst  of  fire  and  crash  of 
iron  continued  for  two  hours.  A  black  smoke  settled  like  a 
pall  over  the  earthwork ;  through  it  rose  at  intervals  the  dull, 
heavy  sound  of  its  gun. 

At  two  o'clock  the  fire  on  the  shore  and  water  ceased. 
The  smoke,  lifting  slowly,  showed  the  earthwork's  flag  down 
and  shouts  rose  from  our  batteries.  But  hardly  had  they 
died  away  before  daring  men  leaped  upon  its  parapet  and 
uplifted  it  again.  Our  batteries  then  renewed,  and  continued 
unceasingly,  their  fire.  Our  ironclads  hurled  their  tons  of 
iron  against  the  earthwork  again ;  and  the  black  pall  sunk 
down  over  it  as  before. 

At  six  o'clock  there  was  flame  and  smoke  everywhere. 
There  was  a  ceaseless  tremor  through  the  island ;  there  were 
broken  cloud  masses  and  drifts  of  steam,  and  explosions  of 
shells  across  the  channel.  The  scene  had  grown  to  be  like 
some  fabulous  likeness  of  thick  darkness,  flame  and  fire. 
Over  this  scene  the  sun  was  sinking  in  the  West,  and  glitter 
ing  across  the  channel  in  a  great  sheet  of  gold. 

A  little  boat  pushed  out  from  the  shore  to  the  cloud  line 
W7here  the  ironclads  lay,  conveying  orders  to  the  old  Admi 
ral.  The  preparations  for  the  assault  had  been  made.  The 
last  act  of  the  drama  was  about  to  begin.  On  the  channel 
and  on  the  shore  must  now  be  exhausted  the  utmost  limit  of 
our  destructive  power.  Then  the  ironclads  strove  with 
almost  superhuman  efforts,  and  last,  a  bold  commander  ran 
out  his  vessel  from  the  others  up  under  the  earthwork ;  as 
by  a  gigantic  inspiration,  within  pistol  range  he  discharged 
deliberately,  his  vessel's  immense  shells  directly  into  an  em 
brasure, — lifting,  by  that  close  terrible  fire,  a  columbiad 
bodily  from  its  place,  sinking  it  with  its  gunners,  and  crumb 
ling  an  angle  of  the  earthwork  down  into  the  sea.  He  had 
grasped,  as  it  were,  his  huge  iron  vessel  like  a  pistol  in  his 
hand,  stretched  it  out  and  flashed  it  in  duello  into  the  very 
eyes  of  the  enemy,  a  final  answer  to  their  morning's  chal- 


56  MINDKX  ARMAIS. 

lenge.  The  work  of  our  great  Vikings  of  the  Northern 
seas,  had,  in  this  act,  a  fitting  conclusion.  On  the  island  the 
tempestuous  fire,  also  about  to  cease,  became  more  frequent, 
more  accurate,  more  terrible.  Our  shells  burst  in  such  rapid 
continuing  groups  together  that  the  earthworks  shone  out 
like  a  constantly  exploding  mine.  It  became,  at  last,  the 
sole  object  visible,  glowing  and  brightening  to  the  conflict's 
close.  At  the  same  moment,  on  the  channel  and  on  the 
island,  between  seven  and  eight  o'clock,  the  fire  ceased,  and 
gathering  night  and  silence  rested  over  all. 

We  had  deluged  that  battery  with  iron,  and  swept  it 
with  fire  ;  yet,  within  its  bomb-proofs  and  in  the  sand  ridges 
in  its  rear  a  thousand  slaveholders  still  survived.  Around 
them  lay  the  mangled  bodies  of  their  brothers  and  of  their 
sons,  but  they  stood  there  as  resolved  as  when  the  first  rays 
of  the  sunlight  of  that  day  of  desolation  gilded  their  beloved 
city's  spires.  We  must  now  begin  a  desperate  struggle,  hand 
to  hand,  breast  to  breast  with  these  resolute  men.  WTho 
should  General  Gilmore  select  for  that  struggle,  the  endur 
ance  of  which  has  hardly  had  a  parallel  ?  The  choice  has 
been  made.  Three  days  before,  the  order  was  written.  By 
that  order  the  54th  Regiment  of  Massachusetts  Volunteers, 
had  made  the  march  to  Morris  Island ;  by  that  order,  most 
honorable  to  their  race,  they  were  before  the  lines  of  our 
batteries.  Among  all  the  men  General  Gilmore  had  gathered 
on  that  island,  seventeen  thousand  men  of  our  own  race,  he 
had  assigned  them  this  place.  At  eight  o'clock  they  began 
that  death  journey  from  the  lines  of  our  batteries  to  the 
broken  slopes  of  Battery  Wagner.  Thirteen  hundred  yards 
intervened  between  these  lines  and  that  Battery  when  the 
bombardment  began  that  morning.  They  yet  intervened  at 
this  hour ;  a  long  reach  of  wret  level  sand,  separating  these 
black  men  from  the  thousand  slaveholders  who  stood  in  that 
Battery.  Our  brave  brothers,  liege  black  men,  move  for 
ward  in  solid  regimental  column.  Lightning  flashes  along 
the  horizon,  thunder  mutters  in  the  distance.  They  move 
steadily  on  three  hundred  yards  of  this  death  journey. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  57 

There,  at  once,  before  them  the  air  is  lit  with  sudden  flashes 
and  a  terrible  crash  breaks  through  the  darkness — a  storm  of 
shot  and  shell,  sheets  of  iron  hurtle  by,  pause,  hurtle  by 
again,  as  rain  washes  along  the  earth,  driven  by  angry  winds. 
Where  the  iron  storm  falls  there  is  a  mound  of  dead  black 
men ;  but  the  broken  regiment  struggles  through  this  driv 
ing  storm ;  foot  by  foot,  they  make  their  way  onward  toward 
the  Battery.  Man  after  man  is  riven  down  from  his  com 
panions,  a  long  line  of  their  dead  lengthens  behind  them. 
But  they  struggle  on  ;  they  reach  that  dark  Battery ;  with  a 
great  shout  they  rush  forward — but  behind  its  broken  slopes 
those  thousand  slaveholders,  with  levelled  muskets,  lie  side 
by  side.  As  the  shout  of  our  brave  allies  rises,  a  fringe  of 
fire  runs  along  its  edge,  deliberate  and  terrible.  But  those 
brave  black  men,  made  more  desperate  by  the  cries  of  agony 
and  falling  forms  of  their  companions,  struggle  on,  and  gain 
that  Battery's  sloping  side.  Through  the  steady  fire  of  how 
itzers  and  the  continuous  flash  of  musketry  they  gain  the 
parapet. 

Their  dusk,  bloody  faces  glare  into  the  faces  of  these 
slaveholders.  Their  strong  arms  are  bared  against  them. 
A  wild,  shapeless,  brutal  contest,  the  most  memorable  dur 
ing  the  war,  surges  backward  and  forward;  demoniasm 
with  demoniasm — the  slaveholders  and  the  black  race.  Huge 
impulses  of  horror,  hatred  and  revenge.  A  conflict  which 
inflamed  our  nation  more  than  any  other,  and,  at  last,  brought 
to  us,  as  its  final  result,  the  freedom  of  that  race  and  the 
salvation  of  our  national  existence. 

The  next  morning,  three  hundred  yards  before  our  line 
of  batteries,  there  was  a  tumulus  of  dead  black  men  ;  at  short 
distances  from  it,  bodies  of  these  men  lay  separately — the 
dusk  faces  of  some,  calm  and  still  in  death,  were  turned 
upward  to  heaven.  The  hands  of  others,  whose  souls  had 
parted  in  sudden,  sharp  agony,  still  clutched  their  muskets. 
Bloody  breasts  and  fragments  of  others  had  been  driven  into 
the  ridges  of  the  sand.  In  the  tumulus,  the  bodies  for  the 
most  part,  lay  closely  together ;  they  seemed  to  have  been  at 


5^  MIXDKX  ARMAIS. 

the  same  instant  destroyed  ;  but  with  some  the  work  of  death 
had  been  slower.  One  had  wralked  blindly  a  little  way  in 
the  darkness  and  then  fallen — his  footprints  still  remained  in 
the  sand.  Another  had  crawled  away  and  lay  in  the  ridges 
of  a  cannon  shot.  Another  seemed  to  have  straightened 
himself  up\vard,  and  so  fallen  dead.  From  this  tumulus 
began  a  line  of  the  dead ;  this  line  lengthened  along  a  thou 
sand  yards,  up  to  the  very  slopes  of  the  Battery ;  sometimes 
bodies  singly  lying  on  the  sand ;  sometimes  two  or  three 
together.  At  one  place  the  line  was  marked  by  some  shreds 
of  clothing;  at  another  by  a  broken  musket,  then  a  dead 
body.  So  it  continued  until  it  reached  the  ditch  of  the 
earthwork ;  across  the  ditch  lay  a  bridge  of  dead  bodies. 
But  within  the  earthwork  the  terrible  character  of  this  con 
flict  impressed  itself  even  more  forcibly  upon  the  eye.  The 
slaveholder  and  the  slave  lay  there  together;  white  and 
black  bodies  lying  against  each  other ;  agony,  hatred  and 
revenge  made  rigid  upon  their  features  by  death,  so  to  remain 
until  they  should  crumble  away  in  undistinguishable  dust 
together. 

Of  M.  Armais,  one  of  the  soldiers  of  the  nation,  what 
else  could  we  desire  should  be  written  ?  He  was  part  of  this 
bloody  conflict.  Within  that  earthwork,  in  silence  and  dark 
ness,  his  dead  body,  with  others,  lay.  Of  this  fact,  evidence 
conclusive  to  me  remains. 

XXXVIII. 

Among  the  bodies  carried  out  from  the  salient,  there 
was  one  which  claimed  and  received  recognition,  even  in 
death.  Early  the  following  morning  a  subordinate  officer  of 
the  slaveholders,  having  charge  of  the  burial  of  the  dead, 
passed  through  the  Battery.  That  officer  was,  for  whatever 
reason,  impressed  with  its  appearance,  and  after  giving  to 
his  men  the  order — then  and  there  first  given  in  the  war — 
to  bury  the  bodies  of  the  negroes  with  their  white  officers, 
he  remained  awhile,  remarking  the  strange  sense  of  authority 
its  features  preserved  even  in  death.  A  letter  in  my  posses- 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  59 

sion,  to  an  officer  of  this  regiment,  describes  the  body  with 
such  particularity  as  to  leave  no  doubt  on  my  own  mind  of 
its  identity.  But  whether  in  the  Battery  or  along  that  path 
way  of  death,  in  that  assault  he  perished,  and  in  one  com 
mon  grave  with  our  own  race,  was  buried. 

The  life  of  Minden  Armais  is  now  written.    My  task  is 
completed. 


60  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 


The  following  appendices  referred  to  in  the  volume  were 
compiled  to  elucidate  the  positions  taken  in  the  conversations 
and  diary.  They  begin  with  the  conclusive  disputation 
between  Dr.  Bachman,  of  Charleston,  and  Dr.  Morton,  of 
Philadelphia,  the  most  eminent  men  of  their  time,  which 
established  the  fact  that  there  is  a  true  and  enduring  hybridi 
zation  between  the  two  races  going  on  in  the  Southern 
States  ;  this  is  followed  by  statistics  and  accounts  of  the  con 
ditions  of  populations  which  show  a  steady  and  large  dis 
placement,  decade  after  decade,  of  the  white  by  the  black 
race  through  the  whole  middle  belt  of  the  Continent ;  and  by 
the  opinions  of  the  most  eminent  men  here  and  in  Europe, 
fully  sustaining  the  position  finally  assumed  by  the  subject  of 
the  memoir,  which  is  :  that  the  intermixture  of  the  tiuo  races 
is  the  inevitable  solution  oj  this  most  momentous  problem  of 
our  civilization. 


APPENDIX  I. 

Broca's  pamphlet  contains  the  following  suggestions  as 
to  eugenesic  hybridity  : 

If  the  opinion  I  wish  to  combat  were  not  supported 
by  authors  of  acknowledged  talent,  it  might  perhaps  be 
superfluous  to  demonstrate  that  there  exists  in  the  human 
species  eugenesic  hybrids.  Most  of  the  readers  of  these  pages 
must  reconcile  themselves  to  this  qualification,  for  assuredly 
men  of  a  pure  race  are  very  rare  in  the  country  they  inhabit. 
Nothing  is  in  fact  more  clear  than  that  many  modern  nations, 
to  commence  with  the  French,  have  been  formed  by  the 
intermixture  of  two  or  more  races.  My  excellent  teacher, 
Gerdy,  has  devoted  a  long  chapter  in  his  Physiology  to  this 
subject,  and  has  after  great  research  arrived  at  the  conclu 
sion  that  all,  or  nearly  all,  the  actual  races  have  been  crossed 
more  than  once,  and  that  the  primitive  types  of  mankind, 
altered  and  modified  by  so  many  crossings,  are  no  longer  rep 
resented  on  the  earth.  There  is  here  much  exaggeration ; 
for  there  are  races  who  by  a  peculiar  geographical  situation, 
and  the  prejudices  of  caste  and  religion,  have  remained  in  a 
state  of  purity. — p.  16. 

In  point  of  fact  it  was  merely  because  eminent  men  have 
for  some  years  doubted  the  existence  of  eugenesic  hybridity 
in  mankind,  that  it  became  necessary  to  demonstrate  so 
evident  a  proposition  that  the  population  of  France  in  at 
least  nineteen-twentieths  of  our  territory,  presents  in  unequal 
degrees  the  characters  of  mixed  races. 

We  might  say,  without  fear  of  error,  that  the  greater 
part  of  Western  Europe  is  inhabited  by  mixed  races. 

c  i 


62  MINDEX  ARMAIS. 

Mixed  populations  possess  everywhere,  as  those  of  France 
and  Great  Britain,  a  vitality  and  fecundity  which  leaves 
nothing  to  be  desired. — p.  18. 

The  population  of  France,  as  we  have  amply  established 
elsewhere,  is  descended  from  several  very  distinct  races,  and 
presents  everywhere  the  character  of  mixed  races.  The  pure 
representatives  of  the  primitive  races  form  a  very  small 
minority  ;  nevertheless,  this  hybrid  nation,  so  far  from  decay 
ing  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  Mr.  Gobinieau,  far 
from  presenting  a  decaying  fecundity,  according  to  some 
other  authors  grows  every  day  in  intelligence,  prosperity  and 
numbers.  Ever  since  the  revolution  has  broken  the  last 
obstacles  which  opposed  themselves  to  the  mixture  of  races, 
and  despite  of  the  gigantic  wars  which  during  twenty-four 
years  mowed  down  the  elite  of  its  male  population,  France 
has  seen  the  number  of  its  inhabitants  increase  by  one-third  ; 
this  is  not  a  symptom  of  decay. 

Where  the  intermixture  has  been  strongest  the  popula 
tion  is  neither  less  handsome  nor  less  robust  nor  prolific  than 
the  others. — p.  21-2-3. 

— On  the  Phenomenon  of  Hybridity,  by  Paul  Broca,  Secretaire 
General  a  la  societe  d'anthropologic  de  Paris,  etc.  Edited  by  C. 
Carter  Blake,  F.  G.  S.  F.  A.  S.  L.,  Honorary  Secretary  of  the 
Anthropological  Society  of  London. — London,  1864. 

APPENDIX  II. 

The  controversy  between  the  late  Dr.  Morton  and  Dr. 
Bachman,  with  much  carefully  collected  matter,  sets  at  rest 
and  affirmatively,  the  doctrine  of  eugenesic  Hybrid-ization 
in  man. 

Dr.  Morton  says  : 

"There  is  again  physiological  objection  to  the  propaga 
tion  of  any  animals  from  a  single  pair,  because  this  incestuous 
intercourse  tends  eventually  to  the  deterioration  and  extinc 
tion  of  the  races  that  are  subjected  to  it.  As  to  man — let  us 
suppose  the  mulatto  offspring  of  a  black  man  and  a  white 
woman(or  the  reverse)  were  compelled  to  marry  among  them- 


MINDKN  ARMAIS.  63 

selves,  without  any  access  of  other  individuals  of  either  race, 
how  long  do  you  suppose  ths  mixed  race  would  last?  Not 
beyond  the  third  or  fourth  generation." — p.  17-18. 

— Letter  to  the  Rev.  John  Bachman,  D.  D.,  by  Samuel  George 
Morton,  M.  D.     Charleston,  S.  C.,  1850. 

Dr.  Bachman  replies: 

And  now  I  will  endeavor  to  answer  the  question  you 
have  put  to  me,  "how  long  would  the  mixed  breed  of 
mulatto  offspring  last,  were  they  compelled  to  marry  among 
themselves?"  You  answer  "not  beyond  the  third  or  fourth 
generation."  My  reply  is,  they  would  last  till  the  day  of 
judgment.  I  have  resided  in  situations  where  I  have  possessed 
the  amplest  opportunities  of  observing  the  fertility  of  these 
mulattoes.  The  males  and  females  are  equally  prolific. 
Among  individuals  with  loose  morals,  they  are  in  this  respect 
characterized  by  the  same  tendency  that  exists  in  the  whites 
similarly  degraded  ;  but  even  here  the  fertility  of  the  mulatto 
female  is  decidedly  greater  than  that  of  the  white  woman 
under  the  same  circumstances.  At  the  moment  I  am  writing 
my  eye  is  from  time  to  time  directed  to  a  free  mulatto  car 
penter,  superintending  the  building  of  an  adjoining  house. 
I  knew  his  respectable  parents  before  him,  and  am  acquainted 
with  this  man's  children — they  are  in  color  what  are  usually 
called  light  mulattoes — they  have  for  generations  past  married 
with  those  of  their  own  color  and  grade.  This  man  weighs 
about  one  hundred  pounds  more  than  either  of  us.  All  the 
brothers,  sisters  and  relations,  have  reared  large  families  of 
children  ;  I  doubt  indeed,  whether  among  any  of  our  white 
inhabitants  instances  of  greater  fertility  can  be  produced. 
Could  you  favor  me  with  a  visit  here,  and  examine  some  fifty 
families  that  I  would  be  prepared  to  point  out  to  you,  I  am 
confident  that  you  would  greatly  modify  your  statement  of 
their  dying  out  after  three  or  four  generations,  if  you  did 
not  entirely  abandon  the  ground  you  have  assumed.  Although 
I  have  seen  mulattoes  that  have  arrived  at  a  great  age,  I  am 
not  prepared  to  say  that  as  a  general  rule  they  attain  to  the 


64  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

age  of  either  of  their  predecessors.  Still  they  cannot  be 
said  to  be  short-lived — they  raise  large  families  of  children, 
and  I  have  often  supposed  that  they  were  even  more  prolific 
than  the  whites.  I  have  seen  on  an  average  a  greater  num 
ber  of  cases  of  sterility  among  white  females  than  I  have 
discovered  among  the  mulattoes.  Our  records  are  so  imper 
fectly  kept,  and  your  theory  of  repugnance  is  so  little  carried 
into  practice,  that  it  is  not  easy  to  trace  the  mulattoes 
who  have  regularly  intennarried,  beyond  five  or  six  genera 
tions,  but  as  there  is  no  greater  tendency  to  sterility  in  the 
sixth  generation  than  was  in  the  first,  and  as  sterility  is  even 
rarer  among  them  than  in  the  whites,  we  are  warranted  in 
believing  that  in  this  particular  they  partake  of  the  charac 
teristics  of  the  admixture  of  the  Caucasian  with  the  ancient 
Huns,  who  for  ages  and  centuries  have  continued  to  increase 
and  multiply  as  rapidly,  and  are  as  healthy  and  long  lived  as 
either  of  the  unmixed  races  from  whom  they  have  originated. 
Indeed  I  have  seen  the  descendants  of  an  admixture  of  all 
the  five  varieties  of  Blumenbach,  and  probably  one-fourth  of 
the  world  is  now  composed  of  individuals  of  mixed  blood, 
yet  I  have  never  seen  any  races  that  evidenced  a  tendency  to 
sterility. — p.  635-6-7. 

As  you  have,  however,  quoted  from  Walker  and  referred 
me  and  your  readers  to  that  wrork  to  prove  the  truth  of 
your  theory,  I  must  be  permitted  to  invite  your  attention  to 
the  same  writer,  for  his  opinion  on  your  supposed  degeneracy 
of  mixed  breeds  among  the  various  races  of  men. 

After  endorsing  the  opinions  of  Pritchard  and  Pallas, 
tha:  an  admixture  of  the  Celtic  population  of  Ireland  with 
the  Scotch  or  English  settlers  produces  tall,  fine  figures, 
"  and  great  physical  energy," — and  that  the  intermarriages  of 
Russians  and  Tartars  with  the  Mongolians  produce  children 
"  with  agreeable,  and  sometimes  beautiful  features,"  he  goes 
on  to  say  on  the  authority  of  D.  Ayara,  that  in  Paraguay,  a 
great  majority  of  the  people  termed  Spaniards  or  white  men, 
are  a  mixed  breed  with  the  native  Indian,  and  that  "  they 
are  said  to  be  a  people  superior  in  physical  qualities  to  either 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  65 

of  the  races  from  which  they  have  sprung,  and  much  more 
prolific  than  the  aborigines." 

Speaking  of  the  admixture  of  the  Dutch  and  the 
Hottentot,  he  quotes  Moodie,  to  prove  that  in  point  of  under 
standing,  there  is  an  improvement  in  this  progeny,  and  that 
the  intermixture  of  races  seems  to  improve  the  intellectual 
powers  as  much  as  it  does  the  bodily  proportions. 

He  quotes  Dr.  Hancock  to  prove  that  "  in  South  America 
the  mulattoes  are  far  in  advance  of  the  primitive  African 
race. ' '  He  adds :  "  It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  the  Samboes  of 
South  America — the  progeny  of  Black  and  Indians,  are  remark 
able  for  their  superiority  over  their  progenitors  of  either  side." 
Speaking  of  the  Maroons  in  the  West  Indies  Islands,  he  says  : 
"  This  union  has  produced  a  most  athletic  and  vigorous 
race  of  men,  active  and  enterprising.  Whilst  you,  therefore, 
are  under  the  impression  that  the  mixed  breed  which  you 
regard  as  hybrids  will  degenerate,  or  die  out  in  three  or  four 
generations,  Walker,  whom  you  quote  as  authority,  insists 
that  these  mixed  races  not  only  have  improved  in  intelligence, 
but  are  more  robust,  active  and  prolific,  than  either  of  the 
races  from  which  they  sprung." — p.  637-8. 

— Monograph,  Art.  VI.  Second  letter  to  Samuel  George  Mor 
ton,  M.  D.  The  Charleston  Medical  Journal  and  Review,  Vol.  V. 
Charleston,  S.  C.,  July,  1850. 

Dr.  Morton  had  already  admitted  the  doctrine  of  eugen- 
esic  hybridity,  but  added  the  following  remarks  as  to  the 
theory  of  a  repugnance  of  race  to  race : 

"  Now,  since  man  possesses  this  aptitude  in  the  highest, 
degree,  being  as  Blumenbach  expresses  it,  the  most  domestic 
of  animals,  it  would  be  nothing  singular  if  he  possessed  the 
power  of  fertile  hybridity,  even  if  the  human  family  should 
prove  to  embrace  several  distinct  species ;  because,  as  we 
have  fully  shown,  this  phenomenon  is  not  unfrequently 
among  animals  whose  species  domestication,  or  as  we  have 
termed  it,  the  aptitude  for  domesticity,  explains  the  fact  in 
one  instance,  it  certainly  does  so  in  the  other  ;  more  especially 


66  MIX  DEN  ARMAIS. 

since  fertile  reproduction  has  ceased  to  be  evidence  of  identity 
of  species. 

A  word  with  respect  to  the  theory  of  repugnance. 

The  same  phenomena,  moral  as  well  as  physical,  take 
place  to  a  certain  extent  among  men,  as  among  animals  ;  for 
the  repugnance  of  some  human  races  to  mix  with  others  has 
only  been  partially  overcome  by  centuries  of  proximity,  and 
above  all  other  means,  by  the  moral  degradation  consequent 
to  the  state  of  slavery.  Not  only  is  this  repugnance  prover 
bial  among  all  nations  of  the  European  stock  among  whom 
negroes  have  been  introduced,  but  it  appears  to  be  almost 
equally  natural  to  the  Africans  in  their  own  country  toward 
such  Europeans  as  have  been  thrown  among  them  ;  for  with 
the  former  a  white  skin  is  not  more  admired  than  a  black 
one  is  with  us. — p.  22. 

— Hybridity  in  animals  and  plants,  by  Samuel  George  Morton, 
M.  D.,  read  before  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia, 
November  4  and  u,  1846.  New  Haven,  1847. 

In  a  critique  of  this  paper,  Dr.  Bachman,  while  regard 
ing  the  matter  in  a  melancholy  light,  says  very  conclusively : 

Near  the  close  of  this  article  Dr.  M.  offers  a  "  word 
with  respect  to  the  theory  of  repugnance."  He  considers 
that  the  same  repugnance  that  exists  in  the  different  species 
of  animals,  is  also  evidenced  among  the  varieties  of  men  ; 
that  this  repugnance  is  only  partially  overcome  by  centuries 
of  proximity,  and  by  the  moral  degradation  consequent  to 
the  state  of  slavery.  He  adds  :  "  Not  only  is  this  repug 
nance  proverbial  among  all  nations  of  the  European  stock 
among  wrhom  negroes  have  been  introduced,  but  it  appears 
to  be  equally  natural  to  the  Africans  in  their  own  country 
towards  such  Europeans  as  have  been  thrown  among  them  ; 
for  with  the  former,  a  white  skin  is  not  more  admired  than 
a  black  one  is  with  us."  We  could  heartily  wish  in  behalf 
of  good  morals  that  these  views  of  our  esteemed  friend  could 
be  verified  by  our  experience  in  regard  to  the  two  varieties 
to  which  he  alludes. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  67 

Charleston  has  from  time  to  time  received  the  majority  of 
its  male  inhabitants  from  our  Northern  United  States  and 
Europe.  Personal  observation  does  not  verify  his  assertions, 
that  it  requires  centuries  of  proximity  to  remove  this  natural 
repugnance  ;  on  the  contrary,  the  proofs  are  sufficiently 
evident,  and  to  a  melancholy  extent,  that  if  it  existed  on 
the  day  of  their  arrival  here,  it  faded  away,  not  after  the 
lapse  of  centuries,  but  in  a  very  few  days. — p.  104—5. 

Referring  to  the  opponents  of  his  theory  Dr.  Bachman 
again  says : 

They  are  fully  aware  of  the  long  established  and  unde 
niable  fact,  that  all  the  races  of  men  in  every  age  and  in 
every  country  produce  prolific  offspring  in  their  association 
with  each  other.  That  the  Caucasian,  Mongolian,  African, 
Malay,  and  the  aboriginal  American,  all  are  affording  us 
the  most  convincing  evidences  of  this  fact.  That  in  this 
manner  many  new  intermediate  races  have  been  produced 
on  the  confines  of  Asia,  Africa  and  Europe,  and  that  within 
the  last  two  hundred  years  a  new  race  has  sprung  up  in 
Mexico  and  South  America  between  one  branch  of  the 
Caucasian  and  the  native  Indian,  together  with  110  small 
admixture  of  African  blood.  They  are  aware  that  in  the 
United  States,  whose  first  permanent  settlement  commenced 
in  Virginia  in  1607,  the  two  extremes  of  Africa  and  Caucasian 
have  met  and  produced  an  intermediate  race.  We  know 
them  to  be  fully  as  prolific,  if  not  more  so,  as  the  whites, 
where  their  constitutions  have  not  been  wasted  by  dissipa- 
patioii.  We  will  not  stop  to  inquire  whether  this  race  is 
equally  as  long  lived  as  either  of  their  originals  ;  but  even 
here  we  would  find  no  difficulty,  as  no  one  will  be  disposed 
to  deny  the  fact  that  some  races  of  the  pure  Caucasian,  the 
Mongolian,  and  African  families,  are  more  robust  and  longer 
lived  than  others.  The  facts,  however,  are  undeniable  that 
all  these  half  breeds  are  prolific  with  each  other,  and  we  can 
point  out  at  least  the  descendants  of  five  generations,  both 
in  Carolina  and  New  York,  where  there  has  been  no  inter 
mixture  with  either  of  the  original  varieties  ;  and  they  are 


68  MINDKX  ARMAIS. 

to  this  day  as  prolific  as  any  of  the  other  races  of  men. 
We  are  aware  that  labored  articles  have  been  written  to  show 
that  the  descendants  of  the  two  races,  especially  those  between 
the  Caucasian  and  African,  in  the  process  of  time  become 
sterile.  We  have  not,  however,  of  late,  heard  this  argument 
insisted  on,  and  we  believe  it  is  virtually  abandoned.  The 
learned  researches  of  Dr.  Morton  (Crania  Americana)  which 
are  characterized  by  great  knowledge  and  sound  discrimina 
tion,  will,  we  think,  set  this  matter  forever  at  rest.  We 
regard  his  "  Essay  on  the  varieties  of  the  human  species," 
as  condensing  in  a  hundred  pages  as  much  valuable  informa 
tion  on  this  subject,  as  is  contained  in  any  similar  work  to 
which  we  have  had  access.  Although  we  are  constrained  to 
state  that  on  an  examination  of  the  valuable  materials  he  has 
presented  to  us,  we  have  arrived  at  different  conclusions  from 
those  to  which  his  mind  seems  to  lean,  and  differ  from  him 
in  our  views  of  the  origin  of  the  native  American  families, 
we  must  nevertheless  admit  that  the  world  of  science  is 
greatly  indebted  to  him  for  the  faithful  manner  in  which  he 
has  collected  his  materials,  and  the  judgment  he  has  in  most 
cases  evidenced  in  arranging  them. 

The  accounts  scattered  throughout  his  learned  essay,  of 
the  many  intermediate  tribes  of  nations  that  have  derived 
their  origin  from  an  admixture  of  Mongolian,  Malayan, 
American,  Caucasian  and  African  blood,  are  calculated  to 
convince  all  who  have  hitherto  entertained  any  doubts  on 
this  subject  that  not  only  these  widely  separated,  but  all  the 
varieties  in  the  human  species,  produce  in  perpetuity  an  inter 
mediate  and  fertile  progeny.  Malte  Brun,  speaking  of  the 
Portuguese  in  Africa,  says  :  "  The  Rio  South  branch  is 
inhabited  by  the  Maloes,  a  negro  race  so  completely  mingled 
with  the  descendants  of  the  original  Portuguese  as  not 
to  be  distinguished  from  them.  Several  writers  inform 
us  that  there  is  a  large  and  growing  tribe  in  South  Africa 
called  the  Griqua,  on  the  Orange  river,  being  a  mixture  of 
the  original  Dutch  settlers  and  the  Hottentots,  composed  of 
more  than  five  thousand  souls.  These  are  referred  to  by 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  69 

Thompson  and  Liechtenstein,  in  their  travels  in  South  Africa. 
Several  similar  races,  a  mixture  of  the  African  and  Spaniard, 
or  Portuguese,  exist  in  South  America,  separated  from  other 
communities.  The  last  calculation  we  have  read  of  the 
population,  composed  of  the  mixed  races  in  North  and  South 
America,  amounted  to  upwards  of  five  millions. — p.  115- 
16-17. 

—The  Doctrine  of  the  Unity  of  the  Human  Race,  by  John 
Bachman,  D.  D.,  Prof.  Nat.  His.,  College  of  Charleston,  etc.,  etc., 
etc.  Charleston,  S.  C.,  1850. 

APPENDIX  IV. 

As  to  the  population  of  the  Central  American  States 
Mr.  Squier  writes : 

The  relative  proportions  of  whites,  mixed  (Ladinos),  and 
Indians,  in  the  populations  of  the  various  Spanish  American 
States  is  a  subject  of  profound  interest,  and  to  the  modern 
student  will  appear  of  vital  consequence  in  all  speculations 
on  the  condition,  capacities  and  destinies  of  the  people  of 
those  countries ;  but  here  we  have  to  regret  the  absence  of 
reliable  data ;  for  while  it  is  the  concurrent  testimony  of  all 
intelligent  and  observing  men  in  Central  America  that  the 
pure  whites  are  not  relatively  but  absolutely  decreasing  in 
numbers,  yet  the  statistics  bearing  strictly  upon  the  subject 
are  imperfect,  or  wholly  wanting.  The  actual  Bishop  of 
Guatemala,  Sr.  Don  Garcia  Pilaces,  writing  in  1841,  and 
proceeding  upon  the  census  of  1837  and  other  data  within 
his  reach,  estimated  the  population  of  Central  America  at 
that  time  to  be,  Spaniards  and  white  Creoles,  89,959 ;  Ladi 
nos,  619,167;  Indians,  681,137;  total,  1,390,513.  This  cal 
culation  allows  one  white  inhabitant  to  sixteen  mixed  and 
Indian,  which  proportion  I  entertain  no  doubt  has  now  de 
creased  to  almost  one  of  the  former  to  twenty  of  the  latter, 
—p.  51-2. 


7o  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

Mr.  Thompson,  who  was  British  commissioner  to  the 
old  Federation  of  Central  America  in  1823,  estimated  the 
relative  proportions  of  the  people  as  follows: 

Whites  and  Creoles,      .....         one  fifth. 

Mixed  classes,       ......         two  fifths. 

Indians,         .......         two  fifths. 

He  estimated  the  Europeans,  uor  perfect  whites,"  at  not 
more  than  5,000.  Mr.  Crowe,  referring  specifically  to  Gua 
temala  calculates  the  proportions  as  follows : 

Indians,       ......  three  fifths. 

Ladinos,      ......  one  fourth. 

Whites,       ......  one  fortieth. 

Mulattoes,  .....  one  eightieth. 

Negroes,      ......  one  fiftieth. 

Samboes,    ......  one  one-hundredth. 

Ladinos,  it  may  be  observed,  is  a  term  signifying  gal 
lant  men  and  is  understood  to  apply  to  the  descendants  of 
whites  and  Indians.  It  is  only  used  in  Central  America. 

The  following  table  probably  exhibits  very  nearly  the 
exact  proportions  in  Central  America,  so  far  as  the}'  may  be 
deduced  from  existing  data  and  from  personal  observation  : 

Whites,  .....                 .         .  100,000 

Mixed,  ........  800,000 

Negroes,  ........  10,000 

Indians,  ........  1,109,000 


Total,  ........    2,019,000 

-p.  52-3-4- 

— "Notes  on  Central  America,"  by  E.  G.  Squier,  formerly 
charge  d'affaires  of  the  United  States  to  the  Republics  of  Central 
America.  Harper  &  Bro.,  New  York,  1855. 

Writing  of  San  Juan,  Mr.  Squier  also  says : 

Besides  what  may  be  called  the  native  inhabitants  and 
who  exhibit  the  same  characteristics  in  language,  habits  and 
customs  with  the  lower  classes  in  the  interior  of  the  States, 


MINDKN  ARMAIS.  71 

there  are  a  few  foreigners,  and  some  Creoles  of  pure  stock, 
who  reside  here  as  agents  or  consignees  of  mercantile  houses 
and  as  commission  dealers.  There  are  also  the  negro 
authorities  consisting  chiefly  of  negroes  from  Jamaica.  The 
inhabitants  exhibit,  therefore,  every  variety  of  race  and 
complexion.  Whites,  Indians,  Negroes,  Mestizos  and 
Samboes,  black,  brown,  yellow  and  fair,  all  mingle  together 
with  utmost  freedom,  and  in  total  disregard  of  those  conven 
tionalities  which  are  founded  on  caste. 

In  what  may  be  called  the  best  families,  if  it  were  pos 
sible  to  institute  comparisons  on  the  wrong  side  of  zero,  it 
is  no  uncommon  thing  to  find  three  and  even  four  shades  of 
complexion,  from  which  it  may  be  inferred  that  the  social  rela 
tions  are  very  lax. — The  English  church  is  the  established 
religion  ;  occasionally  a  priest  in  his  black  robes  is  seen  flit 
ting  about  the  town  ;  but  unless  it  is  desired  to  find  out  the 
residence  of  the  prettiest  of  the  nut-brown  Senoritas,  it  is 
not  always  prudent  to  inquire  to  closely  into  his  movements. 
-Vol.  I,  p.  73-4. 

Writing  of  Leon,  Mr.  Squier  also  says : 

Here,  as  everywhere  else  in  Nicaragua,  the  Indian  and 
mixed  population  greatly  predominate,  and  the  pure  whites 
constitute  scarcely  one-tenth  of  the  whole  number.  An  infu 
sion  of  Indian  blood  is  easily  to  be  detected  in  a  large  pro 
portion  of  those  who  claim  to  be  of  pure  Spanish  descent. 
It  displays  itself  less  in  the  color  of  the  skin  than  in  a 
certain  quickness  of  the  eye,  which  is  a  much  more  expres 
sive  feature  in  those  crossed  with  the  Indians  than  on  either 
of  the  original  stocks.  In  respect  of  physique,  leaving  color 
out  of  the  question,  there  are  probably  no  handsomer  men 
in  the  world  than  some  of  the  Samboes,  or  offspring  of  the 
Indian  and  negro  parents.  They  are,  of  coarse,  darker  than 
the  Indian  but  taller  and  better  developed.  It  should,  how 
ever,  be  observed  that  the  negroes  of  Nicaragua  differ  very 
widely  in  appearance  from  those  of  the  United  States.  They 
must  have  been  derived  from  an  entirely  different  portion  of 
the  African  continent.  They  have,  in  general,  aquiline 


72  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

« 

noses,  small  mouths  and  thin  lips — in  fact,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  crisp  hair  and  dark  skin,  they  have  few  of  the 
features  which,  with  us,  are  regarded  as  peculiar  and  uni 
versal  with  the  negro  race.  The  fusion  between  all  parties 
of  the  population  of  Nicaragua  has  been  so  complete  that 
notwithstanding  the  diversity  of  races,  distinctions  of  caste 
are  hardly  recognized. 

A  few  days  in  Leon  sufficed  to  show  me  that  in  the 
tone  of  its  society  and  the  manners  of  its  people,  it  had 
more  of  the  metropolitan  character  than  Granada.  And 
although  the  proportion  of  its  inhabitants  who  laid  claim  to 
what  is  called  "  position,"  was  even  here  comparatively  small 
and  not  at  all  rigid  in  its  adherance  to  the  conventionalities 
of  the  larger  cities  of  Mexico,  South  America  and  our  own 
country,  yet  in  the  essential  respects  of  hospitality,  kindness 
and  courtesy,  I  found  it  entitled  to  a  position  second  to  no 
other  community.  The  women  are  far  from  being  highly 
educated,  but  are  simple  and  unaffected  in  their  manners, 
and  possessed  of  great  quickness  of  apprehension  and  a  read 
iness  in  .good  natured  repartee  which  compensates  to  a  cer 
tain  extent  for  their  deficiency  in  general  information. ' 

The  condition  of  the  country  for  many  years  has  been 
such  as  to  afford  few  opportunities  for  the  cultivation  of 
those  accomplishments  which  are  indisputable  accessories  of 
refined  society,  and  we  are  therefore  not  justified  in  subject 
ing  the  people  of  Leon  or  any  other  city  of  Central  America 
to  the  test  of  our  standards.  I  am  conscious  of  nothing 
more  painful  or  more  calculated  to  awaken  the  interest  of 
the  stranger  from  abroad  than  the  spectacle  of  a  people  with 
really  high  aspirations  and  capabilities  borne  down  by  the 
force  of  opposing  circumstances,  conscious  of  .its  own  con 
dition  but  almost  despairing  of  improving  it. 

In  dress  the  women  of  Leon  have  the  same  fashions 
with  those  of  Granada,  but  the  European  styles  are  less  com 
mon,  owing  to  the  circumstance  that  there  are  fewer  foreign 
residents  to  affect  the  popular  taste.  They  have  an  equal 
fondness  for  the  ci^arito  ;  and  in  the  street  are  not  less  proud 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  73 

of  displaying   a   little    foot   and    a   satin   slipper. — Vol.    i, 
p.  267-8-9. 

— Nicaragua,  by  E.  G.  Squier,  late  charge,  etc.  D.  Appleton 
&  Co.,  New  York,  1852. 

Dr.  Nelson  says  (in  1889)  of  the  population  of  Panama  : 
A  few  of  the  Chinamen  have  their  wives  with  them  ;  many 
of  them  form  quasi-nnions  with  the  Indian  women  of  the 
country,  and  the  offspring  of  such  unions  is  most  interest 
ing.  Such  children  have  straight  black  hair,  black  eyes  and 
olive  skins,  while  the  flattened  nose  of  the  Chinaman  gives 
place  to  the  straighter  Grecian  nose-  of  the  Indian,  They 
are  exceedingly  bright  little  people. — p.  159. 
—Five  years  at  Panama. 

The  Indian  and  negro  in  Columbia  are  not  greatly  given 
to  marriage — they  simply  get  matched — they  deem  matrimony 
serfdom  ;  in  time  if  they  fail  to  agree  they  separate  ;  they 
divide  the  assets  of  their  partnership  ;  he  takes  one-half  the 
children  and  she  the  other — there  is  great  decency  and 
fidelity  in  these  relations.  Ib. — p.  51-2. 

APPENDIX  V. 

Michael  Chevalier,  as  to  the  population  of  Mexico, 
states  : 

The  actual  population  of  Mexico  appears  to  be  about 
eight  millions  of  souls,  of  whom  more  than  half  are  Indians  of 
pure  blood  ;  of  the  rest,  the  majority  consist  of  castes  of 
mixed  blood  who  are  principally  sprung  from  whites  and 
Indians.  The  blacks  and  mulattoes  resulting  from  a  cross  of 
the  African  race  with  whites  or  Indians  form  other  distinct 
categories. — p.  148. 

The  whites  make  scarcely  more  than  a  sixth  or  seventh 
of  the  population,  and  even  among  persons  who  give  them 
selves  out  and  are  accepted  as  belonging  to  the  unmixed 
white  race,  a  goodly  number  have  in  their  veins  a  portion  of 
Indian  blood. — p.  153. 

—Mexico,  ancient  and  modern,  by  Michael  Chevalier,  Senator 
and  Member  of  the  Institute  of  France.  London,  1864.  Vol.  II. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  75 

APPENDIX  VI. 
Mr.  Trollope,  writing  of  Jamaica,  says  : 

If,  in  speaking  of  the  negroes,  I  have  been  in  danger 
of  offending  my  friends  at  home,  I  shall  be  certain,  in  speak 
ing  of  the  colored  men,  to  offend  my  friends  in  Jamaica. 

On  this  subject,  though  I  have  sympathy  with  them, 
I  have  no  agreement.  They  look  on  themselves  as  the 
ascendant  race  ;  I  look  upon  those  of  color  as  being  so,  or, 
at  any  rate,  as  about  to  become  so. 

In  speaking  of  my  friends  in  Jamaica,  it  is  not  unnat 
ural  that  I  should  allude  to  the  pure-blooded  Europeans,  or 
European  Creoles — to  those  in  whose  veins  there  is  no  ad 
mixture  of  African  blood.  Similia  Similibus.  A  man 
from  choice  will  live  with  those  who  are  of  his  own  mode 
of  thinking.  But  as  regards  Jamaica,  I  believe  that  the 
light  of  their  star  is  waning,  that  their  ascendancy  is  over ; 
in  short,  that  their  work,  if  not  done,  is  on  the  decline. — p.  75. 

Ascendancy  is  a  disagreeable  word  to  apply  to  any 
two  different  races  whose  fate  it  may  be  to  live  together  in 
the  same  land.  It  has  been  felt  to  be  so  in  Ireland,  when 
used  either  in  reference  to  the  Saxon.  Protestant  or  Celtic 
Roman  Catholic ;  and  it  is  so  with  reference  to  those  of 
various  shades  of  color  in  Jamaica.  But  nevertheless  it  is 
the  true  word.  When  two  rivers  come  together,  the  waters 
of  which  do  not  mix,  the  one  stream  will  be  stronger,  wrill 
overpower  the  other — will  become  ascendant.  And  so  it 
is  with  people  and  nations.  It  may  not  be  pretty  spoken  to 
talk  about  ascendancy,  but  sometimes  pretty  speaking  will 
not  answer  a  man's  purpose. — p.  75-6. 

It  is  almost  unnecessary  to  explain,  that  by  colored 
men  I  mean  those  who  are  of  a  mixed  race — of  a  breed 
mixed,  be  it  in  what  proportion  it  may,  between  the  white 
European  and  the  black  African.  Speaking  of  Jamaica,  I 
might  almost  say,  between  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  African, 
for  there  remains,  I  take  it,  but  a  small  tinge  of  Spanish 
blood ;  of  the  old  Indian  blood,  there  is,  I  imagine,  hardly  a 
vestige. 


76  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

Ill  Jamaica  one  does  come  in  contact  with  colored 
men.  They  are  to  be  met  at  the  Governor's  table ;  they  sit 
in  the  House  of  Assembly ;  they  cannot  be  refused  admit 
tance  to  State  parties,  or  even  to  large  assemblies  ;  they  have 
forced  themselves  forward,  and  must  be  recognized  as  being 
in  the  van. — p.  76. 

My  theory,  for  I  acknowledge  to  a  theory,  is  this : 
That  Providence  has  sent  white  men  and  black  men  to  these 
regions  in  order  that  from  them  may  spring  a  race  fitted  by 
intellect  for  civilization,  and  fitted  also  by  physical  organiza 
tion  for  tropical  labor.  The  negro,  in  his  primitive  state,  is 
not,  I  think,  fitted  for  the  former ;  and  the  European  white 
Creole  is  certainly  not  fitted  for  the  latter. — p.  77.  That  they 
will  amalgamate,  if  brought  together,  all  nature  teaches  us. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  negro  have  done  so,  and  in  two 
hundred  years  have  produced  a  population  which  is  said  to 
amount  to  a  fifth  of  the  whole  island  of  Jamaica,  and  which 
probably  amounts  to  much  more.  Two  hundred  years  with 
us  is  a  long  time ;  but  it  is  not  so  in  the  world's  history. 
From  1660  to  1860  A.  D.,  is  a  vast  lapS2  of  years,  but  how 
little  is  the  lapse  from  the  year  1660  to  the  year  1860,  dating 
from  the  creation  of  the  world ;  or,  rath  ?r,  how  small  such 
lapse  appears  to  us  !  In  how  many  pages  is  its  history  writ 
ten?  And  yet  God's  races  were  spreading  themselves  over 
the  earth  then  as  now. 

Men  are  in  such  a  hurry.  They  can  hardly  believe 
that  that  will  come  to  pass  of  which  they  have  evidence  that 
it  will  not  come  to  pass  in  their  own  days.  But  then  comes 
the  question,  whether  the  mulatto  is  more  capable  of  being 
educated  than  a  negro,  and  more  able  to  work  under  a  hot 
sun  than  the  Englishman ;  whether  he  does  not  rather  lose 
the  physical  power  of  the  one,  and  the  intellectual  power  of 
the  other.  There  are  those  in  Jamaica  who  have  known 
them  long,  and  who  think  that,  as  a  race,  they  deteriorated 
both  in  mind  and  body.  I  am  not  prepared  to  deny  this. 
They  probably  have  deteriorated  in  mind  and  body;  and 
nevertheless  my  theory  may  be  right.  Nay — I  will  go 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  77 

further  and  say,   that  such  deterioration  on  both   sides   is 
necessary  to  the  correctness  of  my  theory. 

In  what  compound  are  we  to  look  for  the  full  strength 
of  each  component  part?  Should  punch  be  as  strong  as 
brandy,  or  as  sweet  as  sugai  !  Neither  the  one  nor  the 
other.  But  in  order  to  be  good  and  efficient  punch,  it  should 
partake  duly  of  the  strength  of  the  spirit  and  of  the  sweet 
ness  of  the  saccharine — according  to  the  skill  and  will  of  the 
gnostic  fabricator,  who  in  mixing  knows  his  own  purpose. 
So  has  it  ever  been,  a^o,  in  the  admixture  of  races.  The 
same  amount  of  physical  power  is  not  required  for  all  cli 
mates,  nor  the  same  amount  of  mental  energy. 

But  the  mulatto,  though  he  has  deteriorated  from  the 
black  man  in  one  respect,  and  from  the  white  in  another, 
does  also  excel  the  black  man  in  one  respect,  and  also  excels 
the  white  in  another.  As  a  rule,  he  cannot  work  as  a  negro 
can.  He  could  not  probably  endure  to  labor  in  the  cane 
fields  for  sixteen  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  as  is  done  by 
the  Cuban  slave ;  but  he  can  work  safely  under  a  tropical 
sun,  and  can,  in  the  day,  go  through  a  fair  day's  work.  He 
is  not  liable  to  yellow  fever,  as  is  the  white  man,  and  enjoys 
as  valid  a  protection  from  the  effects  of  heat  as  the  health  of 
these  negroes  requires. 

Nor,  as  far  as  we  yet  know,  have  Galileos,  Shakspeares 
or  Napoleons  been  produced  among  the  mulattoes.  Few 
may  probably  have  been  produced  who  are  able  even  to  form 
an  accurate  judgment  as  to  the  genius  of  such  men  as  these. 
But  that  the  mulatto  race  partakes  largely  of  the  intelligence 
and  ambition  of  their  white  forefathers,  it  is,  I  think,  use 
less  and  moreover  wicked  to  deny;  wicked,  because  the 
denial  arises  from  an  unjust  desire  to  close  against  them  the 
door  of  promotion.  Let  any  stranger  go  through  the  shops 
and  stores  of  Kingston,  and  see  how  many  of  them  are 
either  owned  or  worked  by  men  of  color ;  let  him  go  into 
the  House  of  Assembly,  and  see  how  large  a  proportion  of 
their  debates  is  carried  on  by  men  of  color.  How  large  a 
portion  of  the  public  service  is  carried  on  by  them;  how 


78  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

well  they  thrive,  though  the  prejudices  of  both  white  and 
black  are  so  strong  against  them. — p.  78-9-80. 

They  are  fit — these  colored  people — to  undertake  the 
higher  as  well  as  the  lower  paths  of  human  labor.  Indeed, 
they  do  undertake  them,  and  thrive  well  in  them  now,  much 
to  the  disgust  of  the  so-called  ascendant  class.  They  do 
make  money,  and  enjoy  it. 

They  practice  as  statesmen,  as  lawyers,  and  as  doctors 
in  the  colony;  and  though  they  have  not  as  yet  shone 
brightly  as  divines  in  our  English  church,  such  deficiency 
may  be  attributed  more  to  the  jealousy  of  the  parsons  of  that 
church  than  to  their  own  incapacity. — p.  83. 

The  colored  people,  I  have  said,  have  made  their  way 
into  society  in  Jamaica.  That  is,  they  have  made  a  certain 
degree  of  impression  on  the  millstone,  which  will  therefore 
soon  be  perforated  through  and  through,  and  then  crumble 
to  pieces  like  pumice  stone. — p.  86. 

There  are  but  few  white  laborers  in  Jamaica  and  but 
few  negroes  who  are  not  laborers.  But  the  colored  people 
are  to  be  found  in  all  ranks,  from  that  of  a  prime  minister — 
for  they  have  a  prime  minister  in  Jamaica — down  to  the 
worker  in  the  cane  fields.  Among  their  women  many  are 
now  highly  educated,  for  they  send  their  children  to  English 
schools.  Perhaps,  if  I  were  to  say  fashionably  educated,  I 
might  be  more  strictly  correct.  They  love  dearly  to  shine ; 
to  run  over  the  piano  with  quick  and  loud  fingers ;  to  dance 
with  skill,  which  they  all  do,  for  they  have  good  figures  and 
correct  ears ;  to  know  and  display  the  little  tricks  and  graces 
of  English  ladies — such  tricks  and  graces  as  are  to  be  learned 
between  fifteen  and  seventeen  at  Ealing,  Clapham  and  Horn- 
sey. — p.  89. 

The  fact  is,  that  in  Jamaica,  at  the  present  day,  the 
colored  people  do  stand  on  strong  ground,  and  that  they  do 
not  so  stand  with  the  good  will  of  the  old  aristocracy  of  the 
country.  They  have  forced  their  way  up,  and  now  loudly 
protest  that  they  intend  to  keep  it.  I  think  they  will  keep 
it,  and  that,  on  the  whole,  it  will  be  well  for  us  Anglo- 


MINUKN  ARMAIS.  79 

Saxons  to  have  created  a  race  capable  of  living  and  working 
in  the  climate  without  inconvenience. — p.  98. 

—The  West  Indies  and  the  Spanish  Main,  by  Anthony  Trol- 
lope. — Ne\v  York,  1860. 

APPENDIX  VII. 

The  excellent  and  reliable  little  work  of  T.  L.  Godet 
gives  the  condition  and  numbers  of  the  new  race  in  the 
Island  of  Bermuda : 

The  colored  inhabitants  are  persons  of  mixed  blood 
(usually  termed  people  of  color)  and  native  blacks.  Of  the 
former,  all  the  different  classes  are  not  easily  discriminated. 
In  the  British  West  India  Islands  they  are  commonly  known 
by  the  name  of  samboes,  mulattoes,  quadroons  and  mestizos. 
Thus  a  sambo  is  the  offspring  of  a  black  woman  by  a  mu 
latto  man,  or  vice  versa ;  a  mulatto  is  the  offspring  of  a 
black  woman  by  a  white  man  ;  a  quadroon  is  the  offspring 
of  a  mulatto  woman  by  a  white  man ;  and  a  mestizo  or 
mustee  is  the  offspring  of  a  white  man  and  a  quadroon 
woman.  The  Spaniards,  from  whom  these  appellations  are 
borrowed,  have  many  other  and  much  nicer  distinctions. 

Of  those  arts  in  which  perfection  can  be  attained  only 
in  an  improved  state  of  society,  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that 
the  people  of  color  have  but  little  knowledge.  They  un 
doubtedly  possess  organs  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  science  of 
music.  In  vocal  harmony  they  display  both  variety  and 
compass.  Nature  seems  in  this  respect  to  have  dealt  more 
bountifully  to  them  than  to  the  rest  of  the  human  race. 

The  prejudice  which  exists  in  Bermuda  against  the 
people  of  color  is  much  less  than  it  is  in  the  United  States. 
This  great  barrier,  therefore,  which  prevents  the  colored  race 
from  rising  in  society,  the  emancipated  people  of  Bermuda 
do  not  sensibly  feel.  In  this  colony  they  have  for  several 
years  enjoyed  the  same  municipal  rights  and  immunities  as 
the  white  population.  In  civil  affairs  and  in  the  transaction 
of  business  there  is  no  distinction.  By  the  act  of  emancipa 
tion  the  freed  people  are  admitted  to  the  same  standing  as 


80  MiNDKN  ARMAIS. 

the  whites ;  and  may  now  fill  any  office,  from  a  s^at  in  the 
assembly  down  to  that  of  a  rural  constable.  There  is,  in 
deed,  a  prejudice  in  Bermuda  which  excludes  people  of  color 
from  social  intercourse  with  the  higher  classes  of  society. 
Nor  is  pure  white  and  mixed  blood  often  united  in  matri 
mony.  Public  feeling  does  not  allow  this,  or  at  least  regards 
it  with  jealousy.  The  people  of  color  have,  unquestionably, 
a  temperament  peculiar  to  themselves.  Their  cheerful  and 
easy  disposition  and  good  natured  humor  are  proverbial. 
Their  natural  kindness,  and  their  attachment  to  their  off 
spring  and  friends,  when  not  counteracted  by  adverse  influ_ 
ences,  are  equally  well  known.  The  rising  free  generation 
are  quite  a  superior  order  of  beings  to  their  ancestors,  and 
exhibit  a  readiness  of  perception  and  adaptation  rarely  shown 
by  the  preceding  race. 

They  enjoy  a  freer  intercourse  with  the  white  people 
and  observe  enough  of  their  habits  and  manners  to  acquire 
the  ideas  and  modes  of  thinking,  which  are  peculiar  to  civil 
ized  society. 

It  will  therefore  be  obvious,  that  the  people  of  color  in 
Bermuda  stand  on  entirely  different  ground  from  those  in 
the  free  States  of  America.  Instead  of  being  a  redundant 
portion  of  the  community,  they  fill  a  place  of  the  utmost 
importance.  They  will,  in  fact,  constitute  the  bone  and 
sinew  of  society ;  what  their  position  in  society  may  eventu 
ally  be,  it  is  impossible  to  predict ;  but  should  the  fostering 
care  of  the  colonial  government  be  secured  for  them,  and 
should  the  means  of  education  and  religious  knowledge  be 
adequately  supplied,  I  see  no  obstacle  in  the  way  of  their 
advancement. 

At  the  present  time  the  population  is  not  less  than 
12,000,  a  little  more  than  half  of  whom  are  of  colored  or 
mixed  race.  They  are  a  hardy  race  of  people,  and  with 
proper  training  become  excellent  sailors. — p.  148-9-50-1- 

2-3-4- 

In  summer,  fishing  and  boating  in  the  harbor  form  other 
recreations.  The  young  men  usually  get  up  a  regatta  on 


JIINDEN  ARMAIS.  8r 

Hamilton  water  for  sailing  and  oared  boats,  and  some  very 
spirited  matches  take  place,  when  the  adjacent  hills  and  vales 
are  covered  by  spectators  of  both  sexes,  representing  the 
Caucasian  as  well  as  the  Kthiopian  race,  and  there  are  dam 
sels  of  divers  hues — the  sable  Venus,  the  bright  mulatto,  the 
delicate  mustee,  and  the  fair  Bermudiaii  sylph. — p.  190. 
— Bermuda,  by  Theodore  L.  Godet,  M.  D.,  London,  1860. 

APPENDIX  VIII. 

Agassiz  gives  us  some  very  interesting  data  in  relation 
to  races  in  Brazil: 

u  Perhaps  110  where  in  the  world  can  the  blending  of 
types  among  men  be  studied  so  fully  as  in  the  Amazons, 
where  mamelucos,  cafusos,  mulattoes,  cabocos,  negroes  and 
whites  are  mingled  in  a  confusion  that  seems  at  first  inextri 
cable. — p.  296. 

The  hybrid  between  white  and  negro,  called  mulatto,  is 
too  well  known  to  require  description.  His  features  are 
handsome,  his  complexion  clear,  and  his  character  confiding 
but  indolent.  The  hybrid  between  the  Indian  and  negro, 
known  under  the  name  of  cafuso,  is  quite  different.  His 
features  have  nothing  of  the  delicacy  of  the  mulatto ;  his 
complexion  is  dark ;  his  hair  long,  wiry  and  curly ;  and  his 
character  exhibits  a  happy  combination  between  the  jolly 
disposition  of  the  negro  and  the  energetic,  enduring  powers 
of  the  Indian.  The  hybrid  between  white  and  Indian,  called 
mameluco  in  Brazil,  is  pallid,  effeminate,  feeble,  lazy  and 
rather  obstinate  ;  though  it  seems  as  if  the  Indian  influence 
had  only  gone  so  far  as  to  obliterate  the  higher  characteris 
tics  of  the  white,  without  imparting  its  own  energies  to  the 
offspring. 

I  have,  however,  noticed  throughout  Brazil  a  disposi 
tion  to  give  a  practical  education,  a  training  in  some  trade, 
to  the  poor  children. 

In  these  schools  blacks  and  whites  are,  so  to  speak, 
industrially  united. 


S2  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

Indeed,  there  is  no  antipathy  of  race  to  be  overcome  in 
Brazil,  either  among  the  laboring  people  or  in  the  higher 
walks  of  life.  I  was  pleased  to  see  pupils,  without  distinc 
tion  of  race  or  color,  mingling  in  the  exercises. — p.  501. 

Manaos  has  been  in  unwonted  agitation  for  the  last  few 
days  on  the  subject  of  a  public  ball,  to  be  given  in  honor  of 
Mr.  Tavans  Bastos.  The  night  was  not  so  auspicious  as 
could  have  been  wished ;  it  was  very  dark,  and  as  no  such 
luxury  as  a  carriage  is  known  here,  the  different  parties 
might  be  seen  groping  through  the  streets  at  the  appointed 
liour  lighted  with  lanterns.  Every  now  and  then,  as  we 
were  on  our  way,  a  ball  dress  would  emerge  from  the  dark 
ness  of  an  opposite  corner,  picking  its  way  with  great  care 
along  the  muddy  ruts.  When  we  had  all  assembled,  how 
ever,  I  did  not  see  that  any  toilet  had  suffered  seriously  on 
the  road.  The  dresses  were  of  every  variety,  from  silks  and 
satins  to  stiff  gowns,  and  the  complexions  of  all  tints,  from 
the  genuine  negro  through  paler  shades  of  Indian  and  negro 
to  white.  There  is  absolutely  no  distinction  of  color  here ; 
a  black  lady,  always  supposing  her  to  be  free,  is  treated  with 
as  much  consideration,  and  meets  with  as  much  attention,  as 
a  white  one.  It  is,  however,  rare  to  sse  a  person  in  society 
who  can  be  called  a  genuine  negro ;  but  there  are  many 
mulattoes  and  mamelucos — that  is,  persons  having  black  or 
Indian  blood.  There  is  little  ease  in  Brazilian  society,  even 
in  the  larger  cities  ;  still  less  in  the  smaller  ones,  where,  to 
guard  against  mistakes,  the  conventionalities  of  town  life 
are  exaggerated.  The  Brazilians,  indeed,  though  so  kind 
and  hospitable,  are  a  formal  people,  fond  of  etiquette  and 
social  solemnities. — p.  281. 

— A  Journey  in  in  Brazil,  by  Prof,  and  Mrs.  L,ouis  Agassiz. 
Boston  :  Tricknor  &  Fields,  1868. 

APPENDIX  IX. 
Mr.  Olmstead,  writing  of  the  State  of  Louisiana,  says  : 

There  is  one  among  the  multitudinous  classifications 
of  society  in  New  Orleans  which  is  a  very  peculiar  and 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  83 

characteristic  result  of  the  prejudices,  'vices  and  customs  of 
the  various  elements  of  color,  class  and  nation  which  have 
been  there  brought  together. 

I  refer  to  a  class  composed  of  the  illegitimate  offspring 
of  white  men  and  colored  women  (mulattoes  or  quadroons), 
who,  from  habits  of  early  life,  the  advantages  of  education, 
and  the  use  of  wealth,  are  too  much  superior  to  the  negroes 
in  general  to  associate  with  them,  and  are  not  allowed,  by 
law  or  the  popular  prejudice,  to  marry  white  people.  The 
girls  are  frequently  sent  to  Paris  to  be  educated,  and  are  very 
accomplished.  They  are  generally  pretty  and  handsome. 
I  have  rarely,  or  ever,  met  more  beautiful  women  than  one  or 
two  of  them  I  saw  by  chance  in  the  streets.  They  are  much 
better  formed  and  have  a  much  more  graceful  and  elegant 
carriage  than  Americans  in  general,  while  they  seem  to  have 
commonly  inherited  or  acquired  much  of  the  taste  and  skill, 
in  the  selection  and  arrangement,  and  the  way  of  wearing 
dresses  and  ornaments,  that  is  the  especial  distinction  of  the 
women  of  Paris.  Their  beauty  and  attractiveness  being 
their  fortune,  they  cultivate  and  cherish  with  diligence  every 
charm  or  accomplishment  they  are  possessed  of. 

Of  course,  men  are  attracted  by  them,  associate  with 
them,  are  captivated  and  become  attached  to  them,  and  not 
being  able  to  marry  them  legally  and  with  the  usual  forms 
and  securities  for  constancy,  make  such  arrangements  as  can 
be  agreed  upon. 

When  a  man  makes  a  declaration  of  love  to  a  girl  of 
this  class,  she  will  admit,  or  deny,  as  the  case  may  be,  her 
happiness  in  receiving  it;  but  supposing  she  is  favorably 
disposed,  she  will  usually  refer  the  applicant  to  her  mother. 
The  mother  inquires  like  a  "  Countess  of  Kew"  into  the  cir 
cumstances  of  the  suitor;  ascertains  whether  he  is  able  to 
maintain  a  family,  and  if  satisfied  with  him  in  these  and 
other  respects,  requires  from  him  security  that  he  will  sup 
port  her  daughter  in  a  style  suitable  to  the  habits  she  has 
been  bred  to,  and  that  if  he  should  ever  leave  her,  he  will 
give  her  a  certain  sum  for  her  future  support,  and  an  addi 
tional  sum  for  each  of  the  children  she  shall  then  have. 


84  MIX  DEN  ARMAIS. 

The  wealth  thus  Secured  will  of  course  vary — of  course 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  love  has  nothing  at  all  to  do  with 
it ;  but  love  is  sedulously  restrained  and  held  firmly  in  hand 
until  the  road  of  competency  is  seen  to  be  clear,  with  less 
humbug  than  our  English  custom  requires  about  it.  Every 
thing  being  satisfactorily  arranged,  a  tenement  in  a  certain 
quarter  of  the  town  is  usually  hired,  and  the  couple  move 
into  it  and  go  to  housekeeping — living  as  if  they  were  mar 
ried.  The  woman  is  not  of  course  to  be  wholly  deprived  of 
the  society  of  others — her  former  acquaintances  are  con 
tinued,  and  she  sustains  her  relations  as  daughter,  sister, 
friend — of  course  too,  her  husband  (she  calls  him  so,  why 
shouldn't  she?)  will  be  likely  to  continue  in  and  form  part 
of  this  society.  There  are  parties  and  balls — bal  masques — 
and  all  the  movements  and  customs  of  fashionable  society, 
which  they  can  enjoy  in  it  if  they  wish.  The  women  of 
this  sort  are  represented  to  be  exceedingly  affectionate  in  dis 
position  and  constant  beyond  reproach.  During  all  the  time 
a  man  sustains  this  relation,  he  will  commonly  be  moving 
also  in  respectable  society,  on  the  other  side  of  the  town, 
not  improbably,  eventually  he  marries  and  has  a  family  estab 
lishment  elsewhere. 

Before  doing  this  he  may  separate  from  his  placee  (so 
she  is  termed).  If  so,  he  pays  her  according  to  agreement, 
and  as  much  more,  perhaps,  as  his  affection  for  her,  or  his 
sense  of  the  cruelty  of  the  proceeding  may  lead  him ;  and 
she  has  the  world  before  her  again  in  the  position  of  a  widow. 
Many  men  continue  for  a  long  time  to  support  both  estab 
lishments — particularly  if  their  legal  marriage  is  one  "  de 
convenance." 

But  many  others  form  so  strong  attachments,  that  the 
relation  is  never  discontinued,  but  becomes  indeed  that  of 
marriage,  except  that  it  is  not  legalized  or  solemnized.  These 
men  leave  their  estate  at  death  to  their  children,  to  whom 
they  may  have  previously  given  every  advantage  of  educa 
tion  they  could  command  ;  what  becomes  of  the  boys  I  am 
not  informed,  the  girls  sometimes  are  removed  to  other 
countries,  where  their  color  does  not  prevent  their  living 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  85 

respectable  lives,  but  of  course  mainly  continue  in  the  same 
society  and  are  fated  to  a  life  similar  to  their  mothers'. 

I  have  described  this  custom  as  it  was  described  to  me ; 
I  need  hardly  say  in  only  its  best  respects,  the  crime  and 
heart-stricken  sorrow  that  must  frequently  result  from  it, 
must  be  evident  to  every  reflective  reader. — p.  594-5-6-7. 

"A  planter  told  me,"  remarks  Mr.  Olmstead  "in  this 
connection,  that  the  practice  was  not  occasional  or  general, 
it  was  universal."  " There  is  not,"  he  said,  "a  likely  look 
ing  black  girl  in  this  state  that  is  not  the  paramour  of  a 
white  man.  There  is  not  an  old  plantation  in  which  the 
grandchildren  of  the  owner  are  not  whipped  in  the  field  by 
the  overseer. — p.  602. 

As  to  the  healthfulness,  and  further  as  to  the  numbers 
and  position  of  the  new  race  in  Louisiana,  Mr.  Olmstead 
adds:  "  I  afterwards  spent  the  night  at  the  house  of  a  white 
planter,  he  told  me  that  the  free  mulattoes  were  always 
healthy,  as  far  as  he  knew.  He  thought  they  were  rather 
more  healthy  than  white  people.  Upon  close  questioning, 
he  thought  those  of  them  which  were  nearest  to  white,  were 
rather  weakly.  A  good  many  that  he  remembered  were 
rich,  and  their  fathers'  had  them  educated  and  brought  up 
just  as  they  did  their  white  children." — p.  639. 

An  intelligent  man  whom  I  met  at  Washington,  who 
had  been  travelling  most  of  the  time  for  two  years  in  the 
planting  districts  of  Louisiana,  told  me  the  best  house  and 
most  tasteful  grounds  that  he  had  visited  in  the  State  belong 
to  a  nearly  full-blooded  negro — a  very  dark  man. 

He  and  his  family  are  very  well  educated  and  though 
French  is  their  habitual  tongue,  they  speak  English  with 
freedom  ;  and  one  of  them  with  much  more  elegance  than 
most  liberally  educated  whites  in  the  South.  They  had  a 
private  tutor  in  their  family.  They  owned,  he  presumes  a 
hundred  slaves. — p.  642. 

In  going  down  Cane  River,  the  Dalman  called  at  several 
of  their  plantations,  to  take  in  cotton,  and  the  Captain  told 
me,  that  in  fifteen  miles  of  a  well  settled  country,  on  the 
bank  of  the  river  beginning  ten  miles  below  Natchitoches, 


86  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

he  did  not  know  but  one  pure  blooded  white  man.  The  planta 
tion  appeared  no  way  different  from  those  of  the  white  Cre 
oles  ;  and  on  some  of  them  were  large  comfortable  houses. 
These  free  colored  people  are  all  descended  from  the  progeny 
of  old  French  or  Spanish  planters,  and  their  negro  slaves. 
Two  merchants  to  whom  I  had  letters  of  introduction,  had 
extensive  dealings  with  the  colored  planters,  and  were  confi 
dent  that  they  enjoyed  better  health  than  the  whites  living  in 
their  vicinity.  He  could  not  recollect  a  single  instance  of 
those  indications  of  weak  constitutions  which  had  been  men 
tioned  to  me.  The  colored  planters  within  their  knowledge 
had  large  and  healthy  families  ;  they  were  honest  and  indus 
trious  and  paid  their  debts  quite  as  punctually  as  the  white 
planters,  'and  were,  so  far  as  they  could  judge,  without  an  in 
timate  acquaintance,  good  citizens  in  all  respects.  If  you 
have  occasion  to  call  at  their  houses,  I  was  told,  you  would 
be  received  in  a  gentlemanly  manner,  and  find  they  live  in 
the  same  style  with  white  people  of  the  same  wealth.  They 
speak  French  among  themselves,  but  all  are  able  to  converse 
in  English  also,  and  many  of  them  are  well  educated. — p. 

633-4. 

The  driver  of  the  stage  from  Natchitoches  towards 
Alexandria,  appeared  to  have  been  especially  impressed  with 
the  domestic  and  social  happiness  he  had  witnessed  in  their 
homes. — p.  634. 

The  barber  of  the  Dalman,  said  that  colored  people  could 
associate  with  whites  much  more  easily  and  comfortably  at 
the  South  than  the  North,  this  was  one  reason  he  preferred 
to  live  at  the  South.  He  was  kept  at  a  greater  distance  from 
white  people,  and  more  insulted  on  account  of  his  color  at 
the  North  than  at  Louisiana.  He  thought  that  the  colored 
people  at  Cane  river  were  thriving  and  happy,  he  was  sure 
they  were  quite  as  forehanded  as  their  white  Creole  neighbors, 
-p.  636. 

Of  the  attractiveness  of  this  new  race  Mr.  Olmstead 
gives  the  following  anecdote : 

A  gentleman  of  New  England  education  gave  me  the 
following  account  of  his  acquaintance  with  the  quadroon 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  8/ 

society.  On  first  coining-  to  New  Orleans,  lie  was  drawn 
into  the  social  circles  usually  frequented  by  New  Kngland 
people  and  was  introduced  by  a  friend  to  a  quadroon  family, 
in  which  there  were  three  pretty  and  accomplished  young 
women.  They  were  intelligent  and  well  informed;  their 
musical  taste  was  especially  well  cultivated  ;  they  were  inter 
ested  in  the  literature  of  the  day,  and  their  conversation 
upon  it  was  characterized  by  good  sense  and  refined  discrimi 
nation.  He  never  saw  any  indication  of  a  want  of  purity 
of  character  or  delicacy  of  feeling  in  them.  He  was  muck 
attracted  by  them,  and  for  some  time  visited  them  frequently. 
Having  then  discontinued  his  intimacy,  at  length  one  of  the 
girls  asked  him  why  he  did  not  come  to  see  them  as  often  as 
he  had  formerly  done.  He  frankly  replied  that  he  had  found 
their  society  so  fascinating  that  he  had  thought  it  best  to 
restrict  himself  in  the  enjoyment  of  it,  lest  it  should  become 
necessary  to  his  happiness;  and  out  of  regard  to  his  gen 
eral  plans  of  life,  and  the  feelings  of  his  friends,  he  could 
not  permit  himself  to  be  united  to  one  of  them  according  to 
the  usual  custom  of  their  class.  The  young  woman  was 
evidently  much  pained,  but  not  at  all  offended,  and  imme 
diately  acknowledged  and  commended  the  propriety  and 
good  sense  of  his  resolution. — p.  598. 

— A  Journey  in  the  Seaboard  Slave  States,  by  Frederick  Law 
Olmstead. — New  York  and  London,  1856. 

MOTHER  JOSEPHINE  CHARLES. 

A  WOMAN  OF  THE  NEW  RACE- 

On  May  21,  1889,  was  witnessed  the  interment  in  the 
tomb  of  the  Order,  at  the  old  St.  Louis  Cemetery,  New  Or 
leans,  of  a  distinguished  colored  woman — Mother  Josephine 
Charles,  founder  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Order  of  the  Sisters  of 
the  Holy  Family.  Josephine  was  the  daughter  of  a  German 
father  and  a  free  mulatto  woman,  born  in  this  city  in  1816. 
She  grew  up  a  beautiful  woman,  eager  to  learn,  and  evincing 
strong  traits  of  character,  with  an  earnest  religious  inclina 
tion,  and  she  received  the  best  education  allowed  to  people 
of  her  race  and  caste.  Early  in  life  she  found  delight  in 


88  M  INDEX  ARMAIS. 

doing-  good,  feeding  the  poor,  and  teaching  the  catechism  to 
the  neglected  colored  children.  She  was  wont  to  attend  the 
religious  ceremonies  at  the  Carmelite  Convent.  She  found 
two  free  colored  girls  imbued  with  the  same  spirit,  and  the 
three  determined  to  begin  carrying  out  their  aims — a  mam 
moth  undertaking  for  three  weak  women.  Josephine  Charles, 
Harriet  de  Lisle,  and  Juliet  Gaudet  vowed  to  devote  all  they 
had  of  earthly  means  to  establish  an  order  for  the  education 
of  young  ladies  of  color  and  the  succor  and  relief  of  poor, 
helpless  old  colored  people  and  orphan  girls.  Those  were 
slavery  days.  The  first  work  undertaken  by  the  little  relig 
ious  community  was  the  teaching  of  poor  slave  children,  and, 
encouraged  by  the  Catholic  clergy,  although  breakers  of  the 
statute  law,  the  famous  black  code  making  their  labors  a 
crime,  they  accomplished  a  great  deal.  A  convent  was 
established  on  Chartres  street.  Many  sisters  were  enrolled, 
who  assumed  the  habit  of  the  Sisters  of  Charity.  Since  the 
war  the  Order,  through  Josephine  Charles's  wise  management 
and  excellent  discipline,  has  been  established  on  a  substantial 
basis.  The  Sisters,  in  1880,  established  a  mother  house  in 
Orleans,  between  Royal  and  Bourbon  streets,  near  the  cath 
edral,  and  on  the  historic  site  of  the  old  Orleans  Theatre. 
Here  postulants  for  the  sisterhood  are  received,  and  here  a 
Christian  education  is  given  to  poor  colored  girls.  Mother 
Josephine  did  not  confine  her  work  to  the  house  over  which 
she  presided.  Three  years  after  opening  the  house  on  Chartres 
she  founded  a  branch  at  Opelousas.  In  1875  she  opened 
a  home  for  aged  and  infirm  colored  people  on  St.  Bernard, 
between  Villere  and  Marais  streets.  On  January  22,  1879, 
she  instituted  an  orphan  asylum  for  colored  girls  at  the  corner 
of  Tonti  and  Hospital  streets.  She  increased  the  Order 
constantly  by  her  teaching  and  her  example,  and  accom 
plished  a  great  work  of  benefit  for  the  colored  people.  Her 
labors  are  all  the  more  wonderful  and  creditable  when  it  is 
known  that  for  a  number  of  years  her  eyesight  has  been 
failing,  and  that  for  the  last  six  years  she  was  stone-blind. 
From  her  couch  of  pain  she  continued  the  direction  of  the 
affairs  of  the  Order.  She  was  buried  with  nil  the  honor  of 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  89 

a  saint,  in  the  presence  of  thousands  of  earnest  mourners. — 
New  York  Times. 

Mrs.  Douglass,  a  very  well  meaning  woman  then  resid 
ing  in  Virginia,  deplores  the  universality  of  that  relation  of 
the  races  throughout  all  the  South  in  these  words  : 

"This  subject  demands  the  attention,  not  only  of  the 
religious  population,  but  of  statesmen  and  law-makers.  It 
is  one  great  evil  hanging  over  the  slave  States,  destroying 
domestic  happiness  and  the  peace  of  thousands.  It  is  summed 
up  in  the  single  word — amalgamation.  This,  and  this  only, 
causes  the  vast  extent  of  ignorance,  degradation  and  crime 
that  lies  like  a  black  cloud  over  the  whole  South.  And  the 
practice  is  more  general  than  even  Southerners  are  willing 
to  allow.  Neither  is  it  to  be  found  in  the  lower  order  of  the 
white  population.  It  pervades  the  entire  society.  Its  fol 
lowers  are  to  be  found  among  all  ranks,  occupations  and  pro 
fessions.  The  white  mothers  and  daughters  have  suffered 
under  it  for  years — have  seen  their  dearest  affections  trampled 
upon,  their  hopes  of  domestic  happiness  destroyed,  and  their 
future  lives  embittered,  even  to  agony,  by  those  who  should 
be  all  in  all  to  them,  as  husbands,  sons,  and  brothers.  I 
cannot  use  too  strong  language  in  reference  to  this  subject, 
lor  I  think  it  will  meet  with  a  heartfelt  response  from  every 
Southern  woman." — p.  60 1.  Cited  in  Olmstead's  Book. 

Women  are  poor  philosophers,  but  very  keen  observers 
in  matters  of  immediate  reference  to  themselves.  There  can 
scarcely  be  a  more  absolute  assurance  of  the  establishment  of 
the  new  race  there,  than  is  contained  in  her  earnest,  but 
unavailing  words  against  the  natural  instincts  of  the  husbands, 
sons,  and  brothers  of  her  own. 

APPENDIX  X. 

Of  the  fidelity  of  the  Negro  to  the  slaveholders  during 
the  war,  the  following  testimony  is  given  in  the  Wilmington 
(N.  C.,)  Messenger  : 

If  the  South  should  ever  have  a  poet  like  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  he  should  sing  one  song  at  least  in  honor  of  the 


90  MIXDEN  ARMAIS. 

Southern  slaves  who  stood  by  their  masters'  wives  and 
children,  and  tilled  the  lands  and  garnered  the  crops  and 
protected  the  homes,  while  the  masters  themselves  \vere  at 
the  front  or  in  bloody  graves  or  lying  maimed  or  dying  in 
the  hospitals.  In  all  the  histories  there  is  no  parallel  case  to 
this.  Would  to  God  that  we  had  a  strong  writer  of  such 
power  to  reproduce  the  old-time  Southern  life  and  make 
"  Mammy  Harriet  "  and  u  Uncle  Davy  "  and  the  playfellows 
Allen  and  Harvey  Columbus,  Jim  and  Sam  and  Pink  live 
again  in  the  pictured  pages  illuminated  forever  by  the  light 
of  genius. 

Their  fidelity  and  affection  were  not  diminished  or 
even  shaken  by  the  fierce  storms  of  war  that  swept  over  the 
land.  •  Their  attachment  to  the  old  homes  and  the  old  master 
and  mistress  and  "  the  chillen,"  appeared  unbroken  until  the 
last  scene  came  and  the  cause  of  the  South  went  down  in 
blood  and  gloom  and  complete  disaster.  They  dug  in  the 
trenches,  they  built  railroads,  they  threw  up  fortifications, 
they  went  with  their  masters  to  the  tented  field  amid  "  the 
stern  alarums"  or  they  stayed  at  home  and  dug  and  toiled, 
at  once  the  producers  of  the  bread  and  the  guardians  of  the 
homes  of  the  whites.  Their  conduct  was  unexampled  and 
their  fidelity,  with  but  few  exceptions,  above  all  praise. 

The  Messenger  remembers  these  things,  and  deplores 
every  occurrence  that  provokes  misunderstandings  and  alien 
ations,  or  that  would  sow  the  dreadful  dragons'  teeth  of  dis 
cord  and  blood.  Let  there  be  peace.  Let  there  be  no 
bitterness  and  antagonism. — February  9,  1890. 

The  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  of  South  Carolina, 
(publication  of  1883)  says  :  There  were  imported  altogether 
into  the  Colonies  and  States,  263,500  negroes,  from  1618 — 
the  first  importation — up  to  1790. 

The  census  of  1790  gives  757,208,  as  their  number  in 
the  States  at  that  date,  an  increase  of  493,708. — p.  371. 

At  the  date  of  Emancipation  (1865),  they  numbered 
4,600,000  ;  subtracting  90,000  imported  since  1790  (a  very 
large  estimate)  leaves  3,752,792,  or  the  enormous  natural 
increase  in  75  years,  of  442  per  cent. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  91 

If  there  be  something  repulsive  in  this  rapid  propaga 
tion  of  the  human  species  under  slavery,  it  may  be  said  in 
answer  that  this  increase  was  by  no  means  due  to  slavery, 
the  free  negroes  increased  during  slavery  even  more  rapidly. 

The  number  of  free  negroes  in  the  United  States  (1790) 
was  59,527,  (1860)  488,070;    percentage  of  increase,  723 
and  in  South  Carolina  (1790)  1,801 ;  (1860)  9,914  rper  cent- 
age  of  increase,  450. — p.  372. 

The  census  for  1880  shows  that  there  are  6,580,793 
negroes  in  the  United  States,  'an  increase  of  1,980,793,  by 
births,  or  43  per  cent,  in  the  fifteen  years  since  Emancipation. 
This  extraordinary  increase  of  the  negro  population  is  one 
of  the  most  interesting  and  important  questions  presented 
by  the  race  problem  in  America. — p.  372. 

The  rate  of  increase  for  the  negro  race  throughout  the 
United  States,  has  been  33  per  cent,  for  the  last  decade,  1870 
-1880,  while  that  of  the  native  white  at  the  North  was  less 
than  15.7  per  cent.  (J.  Stahl  Patterson,  cited,  page  372.) 

Should  these  rates  of  increase  of  population  continue  for 
the  next  century,  the  Negro  would  outnumber  the  native 
Northern  white  by  12,000,000. 

Of  their  relative  vital  force,  the  same  Board  gives  a 
table ;  from  1853  to  1859,  there  were  23,278  births  of  white 
children  in  South  Carolina ;  in  the  same  year  69,078  births 
of  colored  children. 

The  white  births  were  (1836-9)  13.6  to  the  1,000  ;  the 
colored  were  much  greater,  29.9  to  the  1,006;  plurality 
births  (1859),  white,  148  ;  colored,  269  ;  still  births  for  the 
same  year,  2.4  per  cent,  white;  1.8  per  cent,  colored;  with 
a  preponderance  of  male  still  births,  greater  in  the  white 
than  in  the  colored  race. — p.  406-7. 

In  the  record  of  deaths  from  extreme  old  age,  there 
were  reported  in  the  State  22  of  100  years  and  over;  of 
them  4  were  white  and  18  negroes. — p.  411. 

On  the  relative  liability  of  the  colored  man  to  disease, 
the  Board  says :  Consumption  on  an  average  for  6  years  car 
ried  off  6.85  per  cent,  of  the  whites,  and  3.94  per  cent,  of 


92  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

the  negroes.*  Croup  is  almost  twice  as  fatal  to  the  whites  as 
negroes. — p.  412. 

Diseases  of  the  nervous  system  were  more  fatal  to 
whites  than  negroes  ;  very  few  slaves  died  of  homicide,  poi 
son  or  suicide. — p.  413. 

Of  malarial  fever  in '185  7-8-9,  8.13  per  cent,  of  whites 
died,  and  5.63  per  cent,  of  blacks. — page  417.  Of  deaf 
mutes,  the  large  percentage  were  white.  Of  pauperism  in 
South  Carolina,  there  is  an  inconsiderable  percentage,  white 
or  black,  but  what  there  is,  is  less  in  the  negroes. 

There  were  (1880),  70,616  of  white  military  population 
in  the  State,  and  98,285  of  the  colored  population  ;  of  those 
entitled  to  citizenship  by  age  there  are  85,000  whites  and 
118,000  of  the  colored  race. 

The  Board  of  Agriculture  say  further  :  "  Between  this 
race  and  the  white  race,  there  4ias  been  no  distinctive  antag 
onism  ;  in  Charleston  the  chief  city  of  the  State,  they  have 
lived  in  equal  numbers,  in  close  association  for  one  hundred 
years,  and  for  twro  hundred  years  throughout  the  State  there 
have  been  only  two  insurrections ;  and  these  and  the  riots  of 
1876,  are  all  the  casualties  resulting  from  contests  between 
the  whites  and  negroes ;  as  the  Board  say,  taken  together 
for  the  whole  two  hundred  years,  less  than  the  outrages 
reported  in  a  single  year  in  Ireland." 

But  then  these  blacks  are  no  longer  Negroes,  they  have 
become,  insensible  to  the  nation  and  themselves,  a  well 
developed  portion  of  the  new  race  which  has  been  creating 
itself  everywhere  in  the  South. 

The  State  Board  of  Agriculture  definitely  says,  relative 
to  this  fact :  "  The  black  population  of  the  State  of  SontJi 
Carolina,  November,  1883,  are  no  longer  Negroes:  one-third 
has  a  large  infusion  of  white  blood,  another  third  has  less, 


*  The  census  of  1880,  for  the  whole  nation,  shows  that  the  number  of  persons  in  the  United 
States  dying  of  cancer,  in  every  100,000  of  the  population,  distinguished  as  to  color,  was  27.96  white 
and  i  7.67  colored. 

The  proportion  of  deaths  from  cancer  in  proportion  to  •  ,000  deaths  from  known  causes  with 
distinction  of  white,  colored,  Irish  and  German  parentage,  was— white,  19.1  ;  colored,  78  ;  of 
Irish  parentage,  24.3  ;  and  of  German  parentage,  .  5.8. 

Tenth  census.     Mortality. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  93 

but  still  some,  and  of  the  other  third,  it  would  be  difficult  to 
find  an  assured  specimen  of  African  blood  ;  even  in  those 
whose  color  and  features  seem  most  unmistakably  to  mark 
them  as  of  pure  African  descent,  indubitable  evidence  may 
often  be  obtained  of  white  parentage ;  the  external  charac 
teristics  are  by  no  means  invariably  associated  with  the  inter 
nal  ones,  and  such  blacks  are  often  more  intelligent  and  bear 
morally  a  closer  resemblance  to  the  white  race  than  many 
lighter  in  color." 

— Resources  and  population  of  South  Carolina. — p.  373. 

Chas.  A.  Gardner  gives  us  the  following  statistics  : 

At  the  close  of  the  rebellion  it  was  expected  that  the 
negro  race  would  gradually  disperse  throughout  the  United 
States,  and  lose  its  race  identity  and  distinct  habitat. 

An  examination  of  the  census  shows  that  during  the 
past  twenty  years  there  has  been  practically  no  migration  of 
the  negro  from  his  Southern  home.  Excepting  the  southern 
counties  of  Illinois,  Indiana  and  Ohio,  in  the  entire  territory 
of  the  North  and  West  the  annual  increase  of  negro  popula 
tion  has  been  perceptibly  lower  than  the  average  annual 
increase  of  the  negro  race  in  the  United  States. 

If  the  great  body  of  the  race,  suffering  from  social 
ostracism,  poverty,  and  political  oppression,  has  voluntarily 
remained  within  its  present  geographical  boundaries,  we  may 
assume  that  it  will  remain  there  permanently. 

What  are  those  boundaries  ?  If  a  straight  line  should  be 
drawn  from  the  northern  border  of  Delaware  to  the  north 
eastern  corner  of  Kansas,  and  one  from  that  point  south  to 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  negro  race 
in  America  would  be  found  east  and  south  of  these  lines. 

"  The  largest  colored  population  in  any  Northern  State 
is  65,000  in  Pennsylvania  ;  Ohio  comes  next  with  63,000. 
The  lowest  is  Oregon,  with  only  346.  In  fact  there  are  only 
seven  Northern  States  that  have  over  20,000  negroes." 

But  taking  the  seven  Atlantic  aud  Gulf  States,  North  Car 
olina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia,  Florida,  Alabama,  Mississippi, 
and  Louisiana,  we  have  a  compact  territory,  uniform  in 


94  MIXDKX  ARMAIS. 

climate  and  resources,  and  inhabited  by  two-thirds  of  all  the 
negroes  in  the  United  States. 

The  actual  occupancy  of  the  soil  and  the  providential 
adaptation  of  the  race  to  its  physical  surroundings,  suggest 
that  this  territory  will  be  the  permanent  future  home  of  the 
negro  race. 

The  census  of  1880  disclosed  the  fact  that  the  native 
white  population  had  increased  twenty  per  cent,  in  the  past 
ten  years,  and  that  the  negro  population  had  increased  thirty- 
five  per  cent,  in  the  same  time. 

Increasing  two  per  cent,  annually,  whites  will  double  in 
every  thirty-five  years,  while  negroes,  increasing  three  and  a 
half  per  cent,  annually,  will  double  in  every  twenty  years. 

Immigration  of  foreign  or  Northern  whites  may  affect 
the  future  relation  of  the  races,  but  such  a  theory  finds  sup 
port  neither  in  history  nor  in  existing  facts.  Races  have 
migrated  along  the  parallels  of  latitude,  their  Northern  or 
Southern  movements  being  almost  invariably  limited  by  the 
boundaries  of  the  isothermal  belts. 

In  the  year  1882-3,  400,000  foreigners  landed  in  the 
United  States  ;  of  this  number  only  736  settled  in  the  seven 
States  named  above. 

With  due  allowance  for  foreign  and  Northern  immigra 
tion  it  still  seems  a  reasonable  conjecture  that,  adopting  the 
ratios  established  within  sixty  years,  negroes  will  be  in  a 
majority  in  all  the  South,  and  that  one  hundred  years  from 
to-day  they  will  be  double  the  number  of  whites  in  every 
Southern  State. 

The  following  table  indicates  the  present  and  estimated 
future  population  of  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  States : 

WHITES.  NEGROES. 

1880  .    .    .     3,  '814, 395   1880  .  .  .  3,721,481 

1915  .    .    .     7,600,000   1900  .  .  .  7,400,000 

1950  .    .    .    15,200,000   1920  .  .  .  14,800,000 

1985  .    .    .    30,400,000   1940  .  .  .  29,600,000 

1960  .  .  .  59,200,000 

1980  .  .  .  118,400,000 
— N.  A.  Review  (1884),  p.  79. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  95 

The  census  of  1860  says  :  Thus,  according  to  the  best 
estimates,  the  total  population  of  the  United  States  at  the 
close  of  the  present  century  will  be  about  100,000,000. 

Of  the  colored,  in  the  year  1900,  a  large  portion  will 
be  of  mixed  descent,  since  in  1856  one-ninth  of  all  the 
colored  race  were  returned  as  mulattoes,  while  in  1860  it  is 
one-eighth  of  the  whole  and  36  per  cent,  of  the  free.  In 
regard  to  emigration,  the  number  colonized  by  the  Ameri 
can  Colonization  Society  and  its  auxiliaries  during  the  past 
ten  years  has  averaged  about  400  per  annum,  besides  the 
Africans  captured  on  several  slave  ships.  The  total  number 
of  colored  emigrants  sent  to  Liberia  from  1820  to  1856, 
inclusive,  is  stated  at  9,502,  of  whom  3,676  were  free  born. 
— Prep.  Rep.  Eighth  Census,  p.  6. 

George  W.  Cable  takes  the  following  ground  as  to  the 
duty  of  the  negroes  to  themselves  :  "  You  can  as  urgently 
claim  the  liberty  to  perform  all  your  civil  duties  as  the  liberty 
to  enjoy  all  your  civil  rights.  The  two  must  be  sought  at 
the  same  time  and  by  the  same  methods.  They  should  never 
be  divided.  You  must  feel  and  declare  yourself  no  longer 
the  Nation's,  much  less  any  political  party's,  still  less  your 
own  master's  mere  nursling,  but  one  bound  by  the  duties  of 
citizenship  to  study,  and  actively  seek,  all  men's  rights,  and 
the  public  welfare  of  the  nation,  and  of  every  lesser  com 
munity,  State,  county,  city,  village,  to  which  he  belongs. 

Holding  this  attitude,  you  can  make  many  things  clear, 
concerning  the  cause  of  civil  rights,  that  greatly  need  to  be 
made  so. 

For  instance,  that  this  cause  is  not  merely  yours,  but  is 
a  great  fundamental  necessity  of  all  free  government,  in 
which  every  American  citizen  is  interested,  knowing  that 
they  who  neglect  to  defend  any  principle  of  liberty  may  well 
expect  to  lose  its  substance. 

Or,  for  another  instance,  that  the  demand  for  equal  civil, 
including  political,  rights,  is  by  no  means  a  demand  for 
supremacy,  .much  less  the  supremacy  of  one  race  over 
another. 


96  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

Or,  that  the  demand  for  equal  unpolitical  civil  rights  is 
not  that  public  indecency  and  unrespectability,  enjoy  all  the 
rights  of  decency  and  respectability." — The  Forum,  August, 
1888. 

Hon.  John  R.  Lynch,  ex-Congressman  of  Mississippi, 
and  now  fourth  Auditor  of  the  Treasury  at  Washington, 
D.  C,  a  representative  man  of  the  Nezv  Race,  recently  said, 
relative  to  the  South  : 

u  The  subject  of  race  assimilation  does  not  disturb  them 
in  the  South,  in  the  least,  they  have  sense  enough  to  know 
that  all  such  questions  regulate  themselves. 

If  there  be  strong  race  antipathies,  the  existence  of  such 
antipathies  will  keep  the  races  apart  socially,  without  outside 
assistance  and  without  legislative  control. 

If  there  be  no  race  antipathies,  the  fusion  or  assimilation 
of  the  two  races  will  be  the  result  of  the  voluntary  choice 
of  both,  in  which  event  there  can  be  no  harm  to  either. 

In  either  case  I  cannot  see  that  race  conflicts  and  colli 
sions  are  to  be  apprehended,  because  t\vo  different  races  who 
are  the  political  equals  of  each  other,  happen  to  live  upon 
the  same  continent  under  the  same  government. 

The  colored  American  does  not  seek  to  invade  any 
man's  parlor,  and  he  does  not  recognize  the  right  of  any  one, 
whatever  his  race  or  color,  to  invade  his. 

These  are  questions  which  are  above  and  beyond  the 
legislative  will  either  of  the  State  or  Nation." — Oration, 
February  20,  1890. 

Rev.  T.  U.  Dudley,  Protestant  Espiscopal  Bishop  of 
Kentucky,  uses  this  prophetic  and  assuring  language  :  The 
time  may  come,  and  will,  when  the  prejudices  now  appar 
ently  invincible,  shall  have  been  conquered  by  the  changed 
characteristics  of  the  race  now  under  the  social  ban.  Society, 
then  as  now,  organized  upon  the  basis  of  community  of 
interests,  congeniality  of  tastes,  and  equality  of  position,  will 
exclude  the  multitude  who  cannot  speak  its  shibboleth,  but 
there  will  be  no  color  line  of  separation. 

And  equally    it  may  be  that  our  great-grandchildren 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  97 

shall  behold  such  a  revolution  as  will  open  wide  the  drawing- 
rooms  of  Washington  to  the  black  men  who  have  been 
honored  guests  in  the  palaces  of  England  and  of  France. 

Poverty  and  ignorance  are  no  barrier  in  the  way  of  the 
elevation  of  any  white  man  in  America,  nor  yet  the  obscurity 
or  even  degradation  of  his  origin. 

Though  in  infancy  he  may  have  lain  "among  the  pots," 
yes,  and  the  pigs  of  an  Irish  hovel,  yet  in  this  favored  land 
of  equal  rights  no  arbitrary  distinction  shall  stand  in  the  way 
of  his  education  into  a  cultivated  refinement  that  shall  be  as 
"  The  wings  of  a  dove  covered  with  silver,"  nor  prevent 
that  his  trained  powers  shall  cover  "  Her  feathers  with  gold." 
Why'  shall  a  different  condition  hedge  about  the  black  man 
because,  forsooth,  the  cabin  he  was  born  in  was  in  Carolina 
rather  than  in  Gal  way. — The  Century,  June,  1885. 

Frederick  Douglass,  late  Marshal  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  now  Minister  to  Hayti,  writes:  Nor  do  I 
think  the  negro  will  become  more  distinct  as  a  class.  Igno 
rant,  degraded  and  repulsive  as  he  was  during  his  two  hun 
dred  years  of  slavery,  he  was  sufficiently  attractive  to  make 
possible  an  intermediate  race  of  a  million,  more  or  less. 

If  this  has  taken  place  in  the  face  of  those  odious  bar 
riers,  what  is  likely  to  occur  when  the  colored  man  puts 
away  his  ignorance  and  degradation  and  becomes  educated 
and  prosperous? 

The  tendency  of  the  age  is  unification,  not  isolation ; 
not  to  clans  and  classes,  but  to  human  brotherhood. 

It  was  once  degradation  intensified  for  a  Norman  to 
associate  with  a  Saxon ,  but  time  and  events  have  swept 
down  the  barriers  between  them,  and  Norman  and  Saxon 
have  become  Englishmen. — N.  A.  Review,  July,  1884. — p.  85. 

E.  W.  Gilliam  says :  That  the  most  intelligent  of  the 
colored  population  are  the  distinct  mulattoes  is  everywhere 
noticeable.  I  mark  it  at  their  higher  seats  of  learning.  The 
representative  men  are  mulattoes. 

In  Washington  the  prominent  colored  office  holders  are 
almost  exclusively  of  this  class.  I  can  recall  but  one  excep- 


98  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

tion,  the  Congressman  from  South  Carolina ;  and  generally 
he  would  be  regarded  as  a  mulatto,  with  strong  recession 
toward  the  African  type. 

And  in  the  minor  offices,  the  genuine  black  hue  is  the 
rare  exception.  Educational  superiority  for  the  mulatto  is 
indisputable;  and  his  large  percentage  of  Caucasian  blood 
would  make  it  presumable. 

I  see  no  cause  for  materially  modifying  my  former  con 
clusions  that  the  negro  rate  of  increase  for  the  past  decade  is 
thirty-five  per  cent,  (more  or  less),  or  three  and  a  half  per 
cent,  per  annum  ;  while  that  for  the  native  whites  is  twenty 
per  cent.,  and  there  appears  to  be  no  reason  for  doubting 
that  these  relative  rates  will  be  maintained. 

The  negro  rate  is  not  at  all  incredible,  it  has  been  sur 
passed  in  former  decades;  from  1800  to  1810  it  was  thirty- 
seven  per  cent. 

The  result  of  all  these  causes  is,  to  make  Southern 
whites  less  prolific  than  the  negro.  To  this  is  to  be  added, 
that  the  negro  finds  at  the  South  a  climate  as  favorable  to 
himself,  as  it  is,  in  its  most  fertile  portions,  unfavorable  to 
whites ;  and  that  his  history  bears  witness  to  a  race  with 
phenomenal  breeding  qualities. 

Personal  inquiries  in  a  Maryland  village  (not  the  most 
congenial  climate  for  the  negro)  showed,  in  one  instance, 
thirty-five  living  children  in  four  negro  families ;  in  another, 
twenty-one  children  in  three  families: 

These  families  were  not  selected  but  taken  at  random, 
with  no  anticipation  of  the  result,  apart  from  the  swarms  of 
children  generally  observed  about  negro  homes.  And  I 
have  seen  a  statement  that  in  three  colored  families  in  Geor 
gia  thirty  children  were  recently  counted. 

It  is  a  matter  of  most  serious  regret  that  the  bill  before 
the  late  Congress,  "  To  provide  for  the  creation  of  a  commis 
sion  to  inquire  into  and  report  upon  the  intellectual,  mater 
ial  and  industrial  progress  of  the  colored  race  in  the  United 
States,  since  1865,"  failed  for  lack  of  time  to  give  it  consid 
eration. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  99 

A  measure  bearing  more  directly  and  critically  upon  the 
whole  interest  of  the  country,  could  not  have  been  devised. 

The  data  now  at  command,  in  some  directions  full 
enough,  warrant  the  substantial  accuracy  of  these  conclu 
sions. 

The  statement  in  a  former  article  that  eighty  years 
hence  the  Southern  blacks  would  double  the  Southern 
whites  (96,000,000  for  the  former,  60,000,000  for  the  latter), 
was  meant  to  mark  a  tendency. 

But  it  is  morally  certain  that  by  that  date  and  perhaps 
sooner  the  negroes  throughout  the  South  will  have  a  great 
numerical  superiority. — N.  A.  Review,  November,  1884. 

James  Anthony  Froude,  in  his  exhaustive  paper,  "  Eng 
land  and  her  Colonies,"  says:  "The  Red  Indians,  the 
Aborigines  of  Australia  and  New  Zealand,  disappear  before 
the  white  settler.  Their  history  has  been  a  sad  and  even  a 
shameful  one ;  but  these  races  are  essentially  wild. 

They  cannot  accommodate  themselves  to  civilized  ways, 
and  as  we  may  not  preserve  them  to  hunt  as  we  do  foxes, 
they  die  as  the  wild  animals  die.  Gentle  treatment  makes 
no  difference.  The  imprisoned  eagle  will  not  mate  and  rear 
his  eaglets  in  captivity ;  he  waits,  gloomy  and  solitary,  for 
his  own  deliverance  in  death. 

So  it  is  with  the  savage  tribes ;  they  recede  before  the 
white  man  into  the  wilderness  and  perish  as  if  stricken  with 
blight.  Utterly  unlike  them,  the  African  negro  takes  to 
domestication  as  kindly  as  the  duck  to  water.  He  is  called 
idle :  we  should  all  be  idle  if  we  were  not  obliged  to  work ; 
we  have  idle  classes  at  home  who  are  rather  proud  of  that 
privilege. 

The  negro  no  more  objects  to  work  than  the  European 
man ;  that  is  to  say,  he  will  work  when  he  must.  He  is 
faithful  when  well  treated,  he  is  an  excellent  servant.  When 
I  was  travelling  in  South  Africa,  I  had  a  black  man  and  a 
white  man  with  me,  and  the  black  man  was  worth  a  dozen 
white  men.  For  all  I  know,  the  black  race  may  be  as  good 
as  the  others  when  it  has  gone  through  the  same  training. 


loo  M  INDEX  ARM  A  IS. 

Hitherto  the  negro  has  had  no  chance ;  he  has  been  a 
slave  from  the  beginning  of  history ;  as  he  is  now  in  Cuba, 
so  you  see  him  painted  on  the  walls  of  the  Egyptian  tombs ; 
he  is  ignorant,  childish,  given  to  drink ;  he  is  free  now  but 
cannot  stand  alone  in  competition  with  his  white  superiors ; 
we  have  yet  to  find  out  how  to  deal  with  him. 

He  does  not  pine,  like  the  Sioux  or  the  Delaware,  for 
the  wild  freedom  of  the  forest,  and  die  if  it  is  taken  away 
from  him. 

He  is  happy  enough  when  he  has  enough  to  eat,  and  he 
multiplies  his  little  black  olive  branches  at  a  rate  which 
might  make  Mai  thus  turn  in  his  grave." 

And  as  to  the  duty  of  our  race  to  the  negro  he  further 
says:  "In  this  generation  you  stand  at  the  parting  of  the 
ways  to  choose  whom  you  will  serve — whether  the  old  spirit 
which  you  call  honor,  and  which  another  age  may  call  mad 
ness  and  dishonor,  or  the  spirit  which  in  the  fire  and  cloud 
led  these  millions  of  our  brothers  out  of  the  Egypt  of  vain 
ambition,  into  the  promised  land  of  industry  and  self-respect 
— choose,  and  your  choice  shall  be  brief,  and  yet  endless : 
briefly  made,  and  endless  in  its  consequences." — The  Prince 
ton  Review,  June,  1878. 

George  Rawlinson,  the  Egyptologist,  the  greatest  author 
ity  living  who  has  written  on  this  question,  says,  referring 
to  the  above :  "  It  is  not  even  certain  that  such  races  as  the 
Red  Indians,  the  Australians  or  the  New  Zealanders  can  be 
depended  upon,  if  left  alone  to  commit  suicide,  and  cease  to 
inconvenience  their  civilized  fellow-citizens  by  kindly  effac 
ing  themselves. 

Recent  investigation  in  America  has  shown  that  the 
race  is  disappearing  through  absorption." 

He  then  continues :  "It  will  be  our  duty  to  consider 
whether  this  is  not  the  true  remedy  for  the  existing  difficulties, 
the  end  at  which  enlightened  statesmanship  should  aim,  if  not 
in  all,  at  any  rate  in  the  majority  of  cases,  where  the  infer- 
ior  race  or  races  constitute  a  minority  of  the  community." 


M1NDKX  ARMAIS.  101 

It  is  a  general  rule,  now  almost  universally  admitted  by 
ethnologists,  that  the  mixed  races  of  mankind  are  superior  to 
the  pure  ones.  In  the  earliest  ages  to  which  history  goes 
back,  the  two  most  important  nations  were  those  of  the 
Egyptians  and  the  Babylonians. 

Many  suppose  these  to  be  pure  races ;  but  the  contrary 
is  the  fact. 

The  physical  peculiarities  of  the  Ancient  Egyptians 
whether  depicted  upon  their  monuments  or  as  seen  in  the 
mummies  of  Pharonic  times  are  indicative  of  a  people  half 
Caucasian,  half  Nigritic,  with  perhaps  slighter  intermix 
tures.  "The  form  of  the  head  and  the  features  of  the  face, 
are  of  a  modified  Caucasian  type,  approaching  to  that  which 
is  known  as  the  Syro-Arabian,  but  inclining  in  the  general 
cast,  and  particularly  in  the  nose  and  lips,  and  in  the  soft 
and  languid  expression  of  the  eye,  to  the  negro  character. 
A  similar  degree  of  resemblance  to  the  negro  is  also  obser 
vable  in  the  body  and  limbs,  more  particularly  in  the  legs 
and  feet." 

The  character  of  the  language  is  composite.  "  It  con 
sists  of  elements  resembling  those  of  the  Ndgritian  languages, 
and  the  Chinese  language  on  the  one  hand,  and  those  of  the 
Semitic  languages  on  the  other." 

The  sound  judgment  of  Niebuhr  has  expressed  the  truth 
when  he  says  :  "  To  no  glory  had  the  Romans  less  claim 
than  to  that  of  being  an  original  and  peculiar  people  ;  if 
they  belonged  to  no  nation  it  was  only  because,  as  even  their 
fables  and  disfigured  legends  afford  us  the  means  of  perceiv 
ing,  they  arose  from  the  coalition  of  several  that  were  wholly 
distinct  from  one  another. 

Each  of  these  left  its  peculiar  inheritance  of  language, 
institutions  and  religion  to  the  new  people,  which,  in  the  com 
plex  of  its  national  character,  was  assuredly  always  unlike 
any  of  its  parent  races." 

Attempts  have  been  made  recently  to  distinguish  the 
races  of  man  into  two  classes,  the  allied  and  the  repellent, 
and  to  argue  that  the  advantages  of  union  are  confined  to 


102  MINDKX   ARMAIS. 

the  former,  while  if  the  latter  intermix  the  result  is  unsat 
isfactory. 

But  the  theory  of  "  repellent  races  "  is  based  upon  no 
sufficient  induction.  That  no  feeling  of  repulsion  which  is 
not  easily  overcome  divides  the  white  race  from  the  black,  is 
clearly  evidenced  by  the  fact  that  in  America — even  under 
present  circumstances — the  mulattoes  exceed  in  number  the 
pure  negroes. 

The  quadroon  is,  by  general  consent,  of  a  splendid 
physique,  and  of  a  fair  mental  power.  "  When  the  grade  of 
quinteroon  is  reached,  the  negro  type  has  disappeared  alto 
gether." 

Still  it  may  be  urged,  it  is  not  pleasant  to  take  a  leap  in 
the  dark.  Is  there  any  evidence  from  history  that  the  negro 
can  be  absorbed  and  assimilated,  and  that  the  result  is  advan 
tageous,  or  not  disadvantageous,  to  the  absorbing  com 
munity  ? 

We  have  noticed  the  case  of  the  Egyptians,  the  strongest 
and  most  civilized  people  of  the  primeval  world.  In  Egypt, 
a  white  Caucasia^  race  of  incomers  did  not  disdain  to  mix 
its  blood  with  the  native  Nigritic  element,  and  the  result 
was  a  type  of  man  of  fair  general  physique,  with  a  capacity 
of  skull  not  much  below  that  of  the  modern  European,  and 
with  great  mental  ability. 

The  Pyramids,  the  rock-tombs  of  Thebes  and  Memphis, 
the  temples  of  Luxor  and  Karnac,  exist  to  show  what  a 
hybrid  nation,  half  white,  half  negro,  could  effect  in  archi 
tecture.  Linguistic  investigation  tends  more  and  more  each 
day  to  prove  that  results  scarcely  less  surprising  were  arrived 
at  in  science  and  literature. 

In  Egypt,  the  Nigritic  element  was  large,  and  the 
physical  type  was  considerably  affected  by  it.  In  another 
Eastern  country,  where  white  blood  preponderated,  a  Nigritic 
race,  "  black  skinned  and  woolly-haired,"  on  the  evidence  of 
an  eye  witness,  has  been  gradually  absorbed  and  assimilated, 
so  that  now  no  trace  of  it  has  been  left.  The  "  black-faced  " 
Colchians  of  Pindar  are  lost  in  the  modern  inhabitants  of 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  103 

Imerita,  who  are  a  fine  people,  u  of  European  features  and 
form,"  noted  for  the  beauty  of  their  women,  which  is  said 
to  exceed  that  of  the  Circassians. 

In  America  the  absorption  of  4,000,000  by  36,000,000 
might  be  expected  to  result  similarly. 

Yet  another  question  may  be  asked,  since  the  absorption 
could  not  but  in  some  respects,  and  for  a  time,  tend  towards 
a  deterioration  of  the  stock,  what  it  may  be  said,  are  the 
compensatory  advantages  which  might  be  expected  to  flow 
from  it  ?  Can  they  be  pointed  out  ?  If  not,  might  it  not 
be  a  wiser  course  for  the  American  people  to  "  bear  the  ills 
they  have,"  rather  than  ufly  to  others  that  they  know 
not  of?" 

We  reply  :  There  would  be  two  compensations.  The 
great  compensation  would  be  the  removal  of  all  those  jeal 
ousies,  suspicions,  heart  burnings,  complaints,  grievances, 
which  at  present  divide  and  estrange  the  black  population 
from  the  white,  splitting  up  the  American  people  into  two 
antagonistic  nationalities,  between  which  there  may  be  an 
armed  truce,  but  never  any  real  hearty  agreement. 

It  would  be  worth  paying  a  heavy  price  to  get  rid  once 
for  all  of  the  great  negro  difficulty,  to  establish  practically 
the  equality  and  brotherhood  which  are  now  preached  by  all, 
but  practiced  by  few,'  to  weld  the  present  jarring  elements 
into  a  really  accordant  and  united  whole. 

It  would  be  a  gain  were  something  of  the  lighthearted- 
ness,  the  gayety,  the  abandon  of  the  negro,  infused  with  his 
blood  into  the  white  population  ;  were  the  contentedness  and 
insouciance  which  characterize  him,  and  make  him  seem  a 
sort  of  grown  up  child,  a  little  to  temper  the  far  seeing  pru 
dence  and  keen  calculating  activity  which  among  the  whites 
are  developed  in  an  undue  degree.  It  might  not  be  a  bad 
thing  if  the  religotis  ardor  of  the  negro  lent  some  of  its 
warmth  to  the  tepid  devotion  far  too  common  wherever 
Anglo-Saxon  blood  predominates,  and  his  ready  faith  count 
eracted  the  cynicism  and  distrust  which  have  unfortunate1  / 
taken  posession  of  all  highly  civilized  white  people. 


104  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

There  might  be  other  advantages  beside  these,. for  some 
of  the  best  results  of  "crossing"  have  often  been  such  as 
could  not  have  been  anticipated ;  but  these  at  any  rate  seem 
to  us  beneficial  consequences  which  might  be  reasonably 
expected  to  follow  upon  the  intermixture  in  question. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  we  conclude  that  self-interest 
points  out  to  the  Americans,  and  to  all  other  nations  simi 
larly  situated,  that  their  aim  should  be  to  absorb  and  assimi 
late  the  inferior  races  with  which  they  are  brought  into 
contact,  to  fuse  the  different  bloods  into  one,  and  become  as 
soon  as  possible  a  united  homogeneous  people.  Let  this 
course  once  be  recognized  as  what  true  patriotism  dictates, 
and  the  social  bars,  the  miserable  caste  prejudices  and  dis 
tinctions  which  at  present  keep  the  races  apart,  would  rap 
idly  disappear.  Mixed  marriages  would  become  as  common 
as  are  now  mixed  unions  of  a  less  moral  kind ;  the  white  blood, 
which  is  to  the  black  as  nine  to  one,  would  in  each  genera 
tion  more  and  more  preponderate ;  and  before  a  century  was 
over  only  the  skilled  physiologist  might  be  able  to  perceive 
the  existence  of  a  Nigritic  element  in  the  composite  nation. 

But  if  self-interest  points  this  way,  still  more  strongly 
does  benevolence.  No  more  happy  fate  can  befall  an  infer 
ior  race,  especially  if  it  be  a  race  on  which  the  circumstan 
ces  of  its  past  existence  have  set  a  stamp  of  physical  infer 
iority,  than  to  be  absorbed  into  one  more  fortunate  in  its 
antecedents,  far  above  it  physically,  morally,  intellectually. 

It  becomes  an  element  in  the  composition  of  a  great 
people.  It  obtains  a  full  share  of  the  mental  and  moral 
treasures  inherited  by  the  present  from  past  ages. 

And  it  gives  something  in  its  turn.  It  contributes  to 
the  common  fund  of  national  qualities  some  important 
traits.  It  is  a  factor  in  the  result  arrived  at.  Whatever 
point  of  mental  advancement,  whatever  perfection  in  morals 
and  in  art,  whatever  height  of  fame  and  earthly  glory  the 
mixed  race  may  reach,  each  element — even  the  lowest — may 
claim  its  part  in  them. 

As  it  thus  appears  that  one  and  the  same  course  of  con- 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  105 

duct  is  prescribed,  in  the  matter  before  us,  by  both  self-inter 
est  and  benevolence,  it  is  unnecessary  to  pursue  any  further 
the  present  investigation. — Princeton  Review.  N.  S.  8.1878. 

However  we  are  not  relegated  to  theory  in  this  mat 
ter  of  race  admixture — it  has  already  been  worked  out  as 
the  lormer  citations  evidence,  on  a  broad  plane— and  we  may 
summarize  the  whole  result: 

The  enemies  of  the  intermixture  first  began  with  the 
theory  that  the  mulatto  could  not  perpetuate  his  race  ;  then, 
losing  this  hold  by  the  facts  of  nature,  they  asserted  that  he 
was  of  low  viability  relative  to  the  white  and  black  ancestor  ; 
and  losing  this  again,  that  he  was  of  lower  moral  stature  than 
the  white  ancestor,  of  which  the  evidence  was  the  state  of 
concubinage  in  which  he  was  willing  to  live  and  the  petty 
thieving  to  which  he  resorted  ;  and  this  is  their  last  vantage 
ground.  Against  the  robbery  centuries  long  continued  upon 
him  by  their  own  race  of  home,  wife,  father,  of  education 
and  the  honor  of  his  helpless  children,  they  contrast  his 
willingness  to  obey  illicitly  a  law  of  nature  which  all  other 
nations  sanction  by  an  ordinance  of  God  and  they  contrast 
against  him  his  willingness  to  right  himself  in  some  small 
measure  by  levying  a  tithe  from  his  master's  granary  whose 
whole  store  was  the  result  of  his  own  labor  ;  that  this,  too, 
is  as  untenable  as  the  rest  in  the  onward  progress  of  the 
new  race  in  those  States  where  it  exists,  as  against  the  more 
unhomogeneous  migratory  white  races,  is  demonstrable  on 
this  continent. 

Civilization  first  evidences  itself  by  strict  justice  between 
man  and  man — fidelity  to  guarantees  of  the  laws  and  consti 
tutions  framed  by  the  consent  of  the  governed — by  political 
changes  without  resort  to  revolution,  and  by  revolutions  with 
out  resort  to  violence. 

The  United  States  is  the  best  representative  of  the  white 
unmingled  races  of  the  earth  ;  Brazil,  of  the  nations  of  the 
largest  intermixture  of  the  black  and  white  races  ;  there 
were  the  same  problems  presented  to  both  nations,  a  change 
radically  in  their  form  of  government  and  the  emancipation 
of  their  slaves  ;  to  effect  the  former  of  these  the  colonies  of 


io6  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

the  United  States  separated  into  factions  of  tories  and  colon 
ists  and  began  intriguing  and  fighting  among  themselves, 
and  at  last  by  the  fortunate  chance  of  a  foreign  alliance  which 
they  repudiated  as  soon  as  they  achieved  their  independence, 
and  by  confiscation — much  destruction  of  property  and  lives, 
emerged  from  the  struggle  an  uncohesive  mass,  rescued  at 
last  by  the  aristocratic  authority  and  incredible  force  and 
evenness  of  character  of  a  man  who  lived  and  died  without 
sympathy  or  affiliation  with  the  representatives  of  their 
common  people. 

The  same  problem  was  presented  to  the  co-mingled 
black  and  white  races  of  Brazil — and  that  race  with  the  com 
plete  unanimity  which  can  only  result  from  race  intermix 
ture,  without  a  drop  of  blood — without  any  wholesale  finan 
cial  ruin — without  injustice  or  wrong  to  their  former  ruler, 
advanced  from  a  monarchy  to  a  republic,  upon  a  firm 
legal  and  financial  foundation — the  sole  instance  in  the 
world  in  its  later  centuries. 

The  problem  of  emancipation  was  solved  in  its  then 
empire,  in  the  same  manner,  most  honorably  to  the  character 
and  higher  civilization  of  the  new  race  of  that  nation.  It 
held  to  the  most  strict  regard  for  the  rights  and  laws  which 
secured  its  properties ;  it  maintained  the  imperial  guaranties 
and  made  laws  for  the  compensation  of  the  owners  of  the 
slaves;  and  without  the  expenditure  of  one  dollar  beyond 
this  just  compensation  or  the  sacrifice  of  one  human  life, 
extended  the  blessing  of  freedom  over  its  vast  domain. 
The  facts  of  the  endeavor  in  the  same  direction  of  the  white 
races  in  these  States  are  relatively  humiliating  to  our  civiliza 
tion. 

These  States  are  still  engaged  in  perpetuating  the  re 
membrances  of  the  destroyers  of  the  people's  lives  on  either 
side,  paying  many  yearly  millions  to  the  unfortunate  relics 
who  survived  the  fatal  and  injurious  struggle,  while  the 
rights  of  a  property  quite  as  defensible  as  a  great  bulk  of 
the  other  property  which  is  accumulating  among  them,  and 
which  will  very  probably  pass  away  in  the  same  manner, 
was  obliterated  from  their  Constitution. 


MINDEN  ARMAIS.  107 

APPENDIX  XL 

Of  the  race  enmities  in  Europe,  the  following  statement 
appears  in  the  London  Spectator  : 

We  know  of  few  circumstances  in  modern  Eiirope  more 
disheartening  than  the  depth  of  the  distaste  felt  by  its  differ 
ent  races  for  one  another.  Their  growth  in  civilization, 
which  certainly  goes  on,  though  it  is  very  slow,  seems  only 
to  deepen  their  dislike,  which,  again,  is  increased  by  their 
propinquity.  The  Spaniards  and  Portuguese  are  lodged  side 
by  side  in  the  same  peninsula,  under  circumstances  which 
would  make  fusion  enormously  advantageous  to  both,  Spain 
gaining  her  natural  capital  and  trading  river,  and  Portugal 
gaining  the  force  to  keep  and  to  utilize  her  colonies. 

Yet  the  keenest  observers  report  that  fusion  is  impossi 
ble,  because  Spainards  despise  Portuguese,  and  Portuguese 
at  once  dread  and  detest  Spaniards.  The  Germans  and  Slavs 
in  the  East  of  Europe  can  hardly  be  compelled  to  keep  the 
peace,  while  the  German  loathing  for  a  Dane  is  as  intense, 
and,  we  may  add,  as  unintelligible,  as  the  loathing  of  a 
Dutchman  for  the  Germans.  The  Italians  and  the  French, 
though  their  frontiers  touch,  despise  each  other  heartily,  and 
when,  as  in  Marseilles,  they  are  forced  into  industrial  com 
petition,  they  can  hardly  keep  from  blows.  The  Slavs  and 
the  Greeks  living  in  the  same  Turkish  provinces,  though 
they  have  the  bond  of  a  common  servitude,  confess  to  a  re 
pulsion  they  cannot  conquer ;  and  the  Poles  and  the  Ger 
mans  of  Prussia,  subjects  of  the  same  Crown,  and  invested 
with  the  same  rights,  regard  one  another,  age  after  age,  with 
the  same  angry  suspicion.  If  the  distaste  were  dying  away, 
we  might  say,  as  so  many  say  about  Ireland,  that  it  was  pro 
duced  by  historic  causes  only  ;  but  we  see  no  evidence  that 
it  is  dying  away. 

On  the  contrary,  it  appears  to  deepen,  until,  in  a  free 
and  enlightened  city  like  Berlin,  there  is  a  positive  danger 
lest,  if  authority  were  paralyzed  for  a  few  days,  the  "edu 
cated"  German  population  would  spring  at  the  throats  of  all 
Jews,  and  bid  all  Poles  depart. 


io8  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

And  all  this  while  the  difference  between  the  races  is 
often  less  than  the  difference  between  families  or  individuals 
of  the  same  race,  and  is  manifested  in  action  mainly  as  a 
difference  in  temperament  and  ideals.  German  and  French 
despise  each  other  and  this  contempt  is  one  main  cause  of  a 
hostility  now  so  deep  that  it  is  the  basis  of  all  external 
European  politics.  The  history  of  the  feeling  between  Ger 
many  and  France  during  the  last  twenty  years  ought,  of  all 
histories,  to  be  the  most  depressing  for  philanthropists.  It 
seems  as  if  the  fusion  which  two  hundred  years  ago  was 
accomplished  in  Alsace,  had  in  the  great  "improvement1'  of 
the  world — an  improvement  in  many  departments  as  demon 
strable  as  the  English  improvement  in  agriculture — become 
impossible. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a  better  illustration  of 
the  depths  of  race-hatred  in  Europe  than  in  Bohemia.  In 
that  kingdom,  the  majority,  3,000,000,  are  Czechs,  an  ancient 
offshoot  of  the  great  Slav  family,  and  the  minority,  2,000,000, 
are  Germans.  Both  are  Catholics,  but  they  are  separated  by 
language,  by  degree  of  civilization,  and  by  the  indefinable 
aggregate  of  inherent  differences  which  \ve  call  "race." 
They  have  dwelt  together  for  centuries ;  but  so  great  is  their 
mutual  dislike,  that  they  keep  up  a  system  of  social  boycott 
ing  almost  as  strict  as  that  which  prevails  in  Ireland,  though 
it  is  not  enforced  by  the  same  terrible  and  demoralizing 
"sanctions." 

No  German  may  deal  with  a  Czech  tradesman,  no  Czech 
may  consult  a  German  doctor,  no  German  manufacturer  may 
employ  Czech  artisans,  and  no  Czech  parent  may  send  his 
child  to  learn  in  a  German  school,  without  suffering  the  pen 
alty  of  ostracism  by  his  own  people.  They  can  hardly  bear 
to  sit  in  the  same  Diet ;  and,  indeed,  for  the  past  few  years 
the  German  Deputies,  exasperated  by  what  they  consider  the 
oppression  of  the  majority,  have  refused  to  sit  there,  and  so 
have  deprived  the  representative  body  of  much  of  its  moral 
force. — January  12,  1890. 


MINDEN  ARMALS.  109 

And  here  in  conclusion  may  we  not  ask  ourselves,  is  it 
not  true  that  no  such  prejudice  as  exists  between  the  white 
races  of  Europe  to-day  has  ever  existed  between  the  white 
races  and  the  black  race  here ;  and  may  we  not  after  all  the 
worthless  endeavors  to  perpetuate  the  past  inequalities  of 
condition  of  that  black  race,  both  by  State  legislatures  and 
Church  organizations,  through  the  subversion  of  its  elective 
franchise,  the  denial  of  its  Christian  association — of  its 
right  to  general  education  and  association  and  the  rite  of 
marriage,  come  to  the  conclusion  of  the  memoir  which  I 
restate  here. 

"  Emancipation  is  not  the  end,  it  is  the  beginning  of 
the  work  which  is  to  be  done,  before  this  struggle  between 
the  South  and  North  populations  will  close.  The  legislation 
of  caste  and  privilege  must  be  wholly  obliterated  from  your 
statute  books,  your  liturgies,  and  social  codes  ;  there  cannot 
be  black  privileges  and  white  privileges  anywhere  in  these 
States.  One  part  of  the  problem  has  been  solved  to-day  by 
this  extraordinary  representative  of  your  race  ;  that  other 
part  will  follow  in  its  time,  for  you  cannot  carry  on  without 
continual  disturbance  a  government  for  free  men,  with  laws, 
usages  and  customs  in  any  part  of  your  domain,  suitable  only 
for  slaves.  Antipathies  will  develop  themselves  there  and 
will  become  stronger  as  the  former  slaveholder,  unadaptable 
to  labor,  impoverishes  and  enfeebles  there,  and  the  black  race 
strengthens,  as  it  will  continually  strengthen  there,  under 
this  emancipation.  It  is  only  by  the  removal  of  their  cause 
— these  obsolete  laws — that  these  antipathies  will  cease.  This 
has  been  the  result  upon  every  other  race  here  which  you 
have  put  upon  the  same  plane  with  yourselves,  and  will  be 
the  same  with  the  black  race  there. 

If  you  would  now  reimpose  upon  the  other  races  which 
arrive  year  after  year  in  your  States,  from  Europe,  the  disa 
bilities  which  will  remain  in  the  South  upon  the  black  race 
after  this  war's  close,  you  would  relegate  them  also  back  to 
their  antagonistic  condition  in  Europe,  and  your  whole  civil- 


I  io  MINDEN  ARMAIS. 

ization  in  these  States  would  end  in  struggle  after  struggle 
between  these  races,  as  it  does  there. 

No  prejudice  between  the  white  and  black  races  here  is 
at  all  comparable  either  in  extent,  duration  or  bitterness,  with 
the  prejudices  between  the  races  of  Europe,  which  emigrate 
here.  They  live  there,  under  codes  and  customs  intolerable 
to  humanity,  which  brutalize  them,  and  so  it  is  they  are 
ready  to  destroy  each  other  on  any  pretext ;  and  this  will  go 
on  there  until  at  last  they  will  carry  down  their  governments 
and  every  sacred  thing,  below  resurrection.  When  they 
reach  these  shores  all  these  disabilities  are  at  once  removed, 
and  forever — marriage  for  them  here  is  free,  one  race  with 
the  other  ;  they  are  equal  in  elective  franchise  ;  the  roads  of 
intercourse  are  as  free  to  one  as  to  the  other  ;  their  churches 
stand  upon  one  common  foundation,  separate  \vholly  from 
the  State  ;  education  is  as  free  and  adequate  to  one  as  to  the 
other  ;  military  service  with  its  robbery  of  their  lives  has 
ended,  and  their  homes  are  secure  from  the  violence  of  their 
former  masters  ;  and  so  it  is  their  hatreds,  centuries  long, 
disappear  also  at  once  and  forever.  And  when  you  shall 
have  given  the  negro  race  the  same  rights  and  privileges 
which  you  have  given  to  the  other  races  here,  and  so 
completed  the  work  of  emancipation,  you  will  have  removed 
from  that  race  also  as  from  the  rest,  all  their  and  your  anti 
pathies,  and  with  them  the  last  cause  of  difference,  as  far  as 
we  see  to-day,  to  the  progress  of  your  country. 

Has  their  longer  life  here,  the  centuries  long  toil  of 
their  hands,  their  service  to  your  race  from  the  cradle  to  the 
grave,  and  their  close  lomestic  relations,  entitled  them  to 
less  privileges  than  you  accord  to  strangers  of  other  races 
coming  here  without  character,  thrust  upon  your  shores  from 
the  hovels  and  lazar-houses  of  Europe  ?  This  does  not  seem 
credible,  but  if  it  shall  be  so — if  because  you  have  denied  them 
every  right  common  to  humanity,  you  will  still  deny  them 
education,  the  marriage  rite  and  the  elective  franchise,  as  freely 
as  you  do  to  other  races  here,  how  great  will  be  the  shame 
to  your  civilization  ! " 


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LIBRARY,  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,   DAVIS 

Book  Slip-50m-8,'66(G5530s4)458 


N9  523341 

E185.61 

Keyser,  G.S. 
Minden  Armais, 


LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
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